Dracones in Montis
by Bizarre Dreamer
Summary: Castiel has been keeping Sam, Dean, and Gabriel updated with the latest supernatural creature sightings. When dragons are spotted in the mountains where they go to college, Castiel insists on spending their summer in the mountains chasing down the dragons that have been spotted. Dean/Castiel and Sam/Gabriel (Also posted on AO3)
1. Chapter 1

Dean looked up curiously from the notes he was studying for finals when Cas came into his and Gabriel's dorm room practically fluttering about. "Alright Cas, what is it this time?" Cas was what Gabriel referred to as their resident "crazy". Of course, Gabriel didn't take kindly to anyone outside their little rag tag group calling his younger brother anything remotely like "crazy".

"Dragons," Castiel said simply as he flopped down onto his brother's mostly empty bed. Castiel might not actually be crazy, but he was rather fond of oddities and the supernatural. The obsession with all things weird really hadn't been tampered down any with the more recent establishments in their society, most of which revolved around the fact that a lot of supernatural creatures were actually real. Vampires and shape shifters, among other things, had come out of the wood work, as it were, over the last several years. Every day there were reports of supposed sightings of all sorts of different supernatural creatures come to life. It could be difficult to tell which were serious and real and which were people trying to get a laugh or worse.

One of Cas's favorite past times was keeping them up to date on the "creature feature sightings", as Sam had dubbed the updates on the freaky supernatural world. It wasn't by any means unusual for Castiel to simply pop up with something like "dragons". In fact, in the last year it had become such a normal occurrence that it hardly fazed any of them at all. Castiel had always had a way of just suddenly being somewhere he hadn't been a moment before, so not even that bothered Dean any more.

Dean blinked at Castiel, trying to decide whether or not his friend was pulling his leg or truly serious about this one. "Dragons, Cas? Really?"

"Yes, actually," Castiel said calmly as Gabriel and Sam both entered the small dorm room looking thoroughly miffed and slightly damp. "What happened to you two?"

"Did you know," Gabriel started calmly, "that it's raining outside? And that most of the people we share the dorm with are idiots?"

Castiel tilted his head slightly, "I was aware of the second, but not of the first. I don't have any classes today, so I haven't actually been outside. Also, dragons."

"Apparently that asshole Crowley's new favorite game is blocking the doors to the building," Sam said grumpily as he folded himself onto the floor in between the beds. "Dragons?"

Gabriel shook his head, "I thought we were still on the kracken?"

"The kracken was disproven; dragons have not been, as such." Castiel paused and tapped his fingers on the bed spread, "Besides, dragons are supposed to be much prettier and probably a lot less messy."

"Well, at least he's not trying to get mom and dad to let him have a goat to keep in his closet anymore," Gabriel mumbled as he plopped down onto the floor next to Sam.

Dean shook his head, "So, what exactly about dragons?"

"There have been numerous sightings in the last three months," Castiel said simply.

"Cas, man, you know we love you, but it's not like any of the sightings were anywhere close to here. Do we really need to get excited over something we'll probably never see?" Dean asked, half out of curiosity and half out of exasperation.

"Actually, Dean, three of the more than twenty sightings happened in the mountains that practically surround this town. So the possibility of us seeing a dragon is infinitely higher than the possibility of us seeing the kracken," Castiel said calmly, smiling slightly.

"Don't tell me," Gabriel said from his spot on the floor, "You want to spend your entire summer driving around in the mountains trying to find dragons."

Dean dropped his head into his hands, "Gabriel, stop giving your brother ideas. Can we please just make it through finals before we start getting all crazy with the summer plans? Some of us aren't certain we're going to pass our Lit classes, is all I'm saying."

"Dean, you'll pass, whether you study or not, and you know it. Besides, a summer road trip could be fun…" Sam said, "When did you actually decide to start studying anyways? It's not like you've ever studied for a final before."

Gabriel snickered, "He's studying because his Lit teacher has it out for him. Though, in all fairness, I'm relatively certain that his Lit teacher has it out for everyone."

Castiel glanced around the small dorm room, looking carefully at each of his friends and pondering the possibility of such a road trip taking place. It was possible. And if he could convince Sam to go, Dean would go. Actually, Dean would go as long as Castiel was going, though he doubted that the others realized that yet. He doubted his brother actually had anything better to do during the summer anyways, and if Sam went Gabriel was much more likely to go. He could always threaten to go alone if the others tried to drag their feet. Besides, road trips were normal college behavior as far as he could tell.

They were an odd group of friends, Castiel knew. Under most circumstances, a group like theirs would probably never work. There was still the occasional prank war (horrid things Castiel tried to steer clear of) and arguments, but they all got on pretty well. Castiel believed that it was in large parts thanks to the understanding that both sets of brothers were unusually close. Castiel and Gabriel came from a family that substituted money for love more often than not, and Sam and Dean came from a family that was more broken than not. Despite odd circumstances and coming from almost completely different backgrounds the four of them got on better than anyone probably could have guessed.

All things considered, chasing after dragons for the summer was hardly the weirdest thing Castiel had thought of doing recently. At least validating the existence of dragons could eventually be helpful to them in some way. Though, someone might kill Gabriel if they were all stuck in a car with him for too long at a time. Sam would be that way with Dean as well, though Castiel certainly didn't have any problems spending time with Dean in a car…perhaps they should take two cars on this little excursion…

Castiel came back to the present from his mild plotting of the summer months to Sam waving his arm around in Cas's general direction. "You still with us Cas? Because it seems like you zoned out there for a bit."

Castiel tilted his head in a way that was mostly common place, "I think taking a road trip in search of dragons is a marvelous idea."

Dean groaned, "Do you see? Do you? I told you Gabriel, to stop giving him ideas, but no. It's just, finals! We have barely a week left of classes and finals. Can we just make it through that without any incident? Please? For what little sanity I have left?"

Gabriel stared blankly at Dean for a moment before responding, "You still have sanity? We must not be doing something right if you still think you have any sanity left. Besides, we all know Cas would have come to that conclusion with or without my help. It just might have taken him a bit longer. Besides, when have you ever made it through any sort of final without an incident?"

"He can't. It just doesn't happen. Even if the incident is entirely in his own head, he still has some sort of incident every time finals come around. It's like some sort of mental disorder," Sam said, grinning as he gestured oddly with his hands. "And despite every incident," Sam inserted air quotes around the word 'incident', "he always manages to pass, usually with A's across the board."

Dean took great care to aim the pillow appropriately at Sam's head before chucking it. "I do not have a mental disorder that requires me to have an incident every time finals come around!"

Gabriel snorted, "Last semester you tripped down the staircase and almost broke your neck."

Castiel waved his hand in dismissal, "Dean is simply prone to slightly catastrophic moments of clumsiness. Now, I wish to discuss the probability of this summer trip."

"Not probability, Cas, possibility. Why on earth do you want to go actually chasing dragons, anyways? They're just supposed to be really big, fire-breathing, flying lizards, right? Nothing particularly special there," Gabriel said calmly, running a hand through is hair. Taking a road trip with his friends was hardly the worst way he could spend his summer, but trailing after dragons seemed like it might be a bit bad for his health. He could just imagine Cas wanting to climb into the mountains looking for caves with dragons. None of them were complete klutzes, but neither were any of them exceptionally graceful. One of them was bound to come back from such an excursion with some sort of horrid injury.

"Dragons are exceptionally interesting creatures, Gabriel. Besides, it's not as though you have other plans," Castiel said, a low grumble more than actual talking. It wasn't as if he was proposing they go sky diving or something. Just a little road trip. "Besides, Sam thinks it's a good idea."

Gabriel and Dean both leveled a steely glare at Sam, who held up his hands as if to ward them off. "Hey, don't look at me like that. Gabriel was the one that actually brought it up in the first place. I was just saying that it wasn't exactly a shitty idea. Except for actually being stuck in a car with you guys for long periods of time. On second thought, a road trip might actually be a really, really bad idea. One of us might get killed, and then we'll have to hide a body, and that isn't going to look so great on a resume."

Dean threw up his hands in defeat, "He's just going to make like he'll go off by himself if we don't agree to at least discuss it." Castiel was strangely good at manipulating them, Dean especially, he knew. He turned to look at Cas, "If we all agree to discussing this, can I get back to trying to study for my finals?"

Castiel picked at the bedding beneath him, tilting his head slightly to the side and internally grinning. This might be much easier than he thought originally. "I suppose."

Dean shook his head, "Do we need to discuss this now, or can this wait until after tomorrow's lit final?"

Castiel hesitated; on the one hand he would have more valid points if he had more time. On the other hand, of course, was that they might try and find a way out of it if he gave them any amount of time to think over it. Time was either going to be his best friend or his biggest enemy here. "I guess we can wait until tomorrow. But I won't forget, so don't think you can get out of this."

Gabriel snorted, "Right, because we'd ever manage that. Fine, after Dean's Lit final tomorrow, we'll all convene and discuss this little cluster fuck of an idea. Now, you two can either scram so us grown-ups can get some studying done, or Dean and I can just start throwing all sorts of shit at you until you leave. It's your choice."

"Yeah, I'm good with the not getting shit thrown at me. Besides Cas, we should look over notes for the finals we have left too," Sam said, and Cas nodded in reply, getting up to follow Sam out the door. "And Dean, try not to have any crazy disasters until after finals, alright?"

"For fuck's sake, just go!" Dean growled as Gabriel moved from the floor to his bed attempting to hide his growing amusement. "You do know that we're practically committed to this trip now, don't you?" Dean asked Gabriel incredulously once the door was shut and the two of them were alone.

"Dean, we were committed to this crazy adventure the minute Cas knew there were dragon sightings near here. Let's face it, my brother has a way of getting what he wants and making everyone think that it was their idea to give it to him in the first place," Gabriel said, pulling out a worn notebook.

"Normal people just call that being manipulative. Cas makes it endearing. Is that even possible?" Gabriel rolled his eyes at Dean as his roommate continued on,

"What's the likelihood of one of us becoming permanently maimed by the end of this little adventure anyways?"

"Pretty good, probably. Think we should get the epitaphs for our tombstones ready now? Yours can be 'Here lies Dean, hopelessly in love with my roommate's brother.' We can get Cas a matching one, too." Gabriel said, grinning widely at the irritated look Dean sent him.

"You want to play it that way? Yours can say the same damn thing. Also, you're insane. I know we usually agree that Cas is the insane one, but I think we should rethink that original vote. I nominate you," Dean said, throwing one of Gabriel's hoodies that had somehow ended up on his side of the room at him.

"Let's just agree to disagree. Shouldn't you be studying for your terrifying Lit final? You always end up with the crazy teachers. I don't even know how you do it," Gabriel said while doodling sporadically in his notebook.

Dean shook his head, and stopped tidying up their room to try and get a look at what Gabriel was doing, "Dude, those hearts look absolutely nothing like your environmental studies notes!"

Gabriel kicked at Dean's leg, just barely connecting, "That's because they aren't, you idiot. Does this notebook look to you like it has 'Environmental Science' written on it? Because usually I'm pretty good at actually labeling my notebooks for what they are. Now, quite being nosy and leave me to my…things. Aren't you the one that was rather theatrically obsessing over whether or not you were going to pass your Lit final? Practically drama queening it all over the place about how you needed quiet to study, or some shit."

Dean huffed, "I just want to see. It's not like there's anything you could tell me or show me that could possibly scar me more than I already am." Dean paused, completely gave up on cleaning up the mostly tidy room, and flopped down noisily onto his bed. "Is it even legal for my professor to hate me this much? I mean, isn't there some rule where they can't openly hate students? Especially students who haven't even done anything! I didn't even do anything to deserve this kind of hate!"

"And we call Sam a drama queen. I understand where he gets it now. Just chill out, your Lit teacher is hard on everyone. Also, try not to go crazy about it around Cas. He'll develop a theory about what sort of creature your Lit teacher really is, and we'll spend the next year trying to tell him different," Gabriel grinned broadly at his friend, "Or rather, you will, because I want no part of trying to tame that sort of crazy. I do it enough as it is."

Dean snorted and rolled his eyes, "Maybe I should just give up on studying and try and get some sleep. You planning on putting up your 'Sam hearts Gabriel' notebook any time soon? Not that I particularly give a shit, but I am curious you know." Dean blinked slowly as he realized that Gabriel was giving him a look that was somewhere between terror and panic. "Uh, Gabe, something you want to tell me?" When Dean got no response, he sat up on the edge of his bed to lean closer to investigate further. "Don't tell me that's what you've actually been doodling in there."

Gabriel practically squeaked and shoved the notebook behind his back. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Except the sleep thing, we can do that, let's do that. We'll just go to bed and forget this happened and tomorrow will be a bright sunshiny day in which you will not come to your doom and Cas will convince us to go on a road trip," Gabriel got out in a rush, hardly taking in any breath. He might have panicked a bit there, which was stupid, because Dean clearly knew about his little thing for Sam. He was currently refusing to call it a crush, even if that is what Dean referred to it as most often. And he was most certainly not writing his and Sam's names together with little hearts around them, because he was not a teenaged girl. He might have been trying to draw Sam, and badly at that, but there weren't any hearts, damn it!

Dean raised both of his eyebrows at Gabriel, "You know, there was a time when I was seriously worried about my own sanity, but these days I'm more worried about yours. Why, for the love of all that is holy, don't you just ask my ginormous brother out? It's not like he's going to say no."

Gabriel huffed. It wasn't like he hadn't thought of asking Sam out. He might have even attempted to get up the nerve once or twice, but Sam had this way of making him forget what he was doing, so it hadn't worked out like he planned. "I'll ask Sam out when you man up and ask Castiel out. Now! I'm going to bed. I suggest you do the same, Mr. I'm going to fail my Lit final!"

Dean glared at him, "You said I would do fine! You don't get to take that back just because you're pissed I found out about you drawing Sam all over the place, or whatever it is you're doing. And I have no intentions of asking Castiel out, because he has absolutely no interest in me what so ever. So there." Of course, that last bit had been an absolutely blatant lie on Dean's part, but Gabriel didn't know that.

Meanwhile, Sam and Castiel were quietly, or relatively quietly, studying for their own finals. "So, when did the kracken get disproved anyways?" Sam asked Cas quietly, as if talking any louder would disrupt their studying. Being roommates with Castiel had been one hell of an experience, not that he wasn't grateful. It was nice having a roommate he already knew and got along with. Sam couldn't imagine spending this much time with someone he didn't know or couldn't stand. Sure, it might have been a way to make new friends, but as far as Sam was concerned, he had Gabriel and Cas, and he always had Dean. Why did he need more friends when he could barely keep up with the ones he had? Cas was enough to keep anyone on their toes, and Sam wasn't an exception to that rule.

"Sometime last week, I think. I was already absorbed in the dragon sightings, so I wasn't paying that close of attention." Castiel paused twirling his pen and glanced thoughtfully at Sam. "Do you think this road trip idea is horrible? Honestly? You would tell me if I was being insane, right?"

"You aren't being insane, or, at least, no more so than normal, so I think we're safe there. And, aside from the time in the car with our brothers, I think it's a great idea. I've always wanted to do a road trip that was meant for fun rather than just getting somewhere. It's not like it will be hard to convince either of them to go, either," Sam said, grinning broadly. "It's not like our older brothers would be stupid enough to let us take a road trip alone, so it'll take all of an hour at most to convince them, and most of that hour will just be them whining about it."

That bit was actually true, Cas was sure. Anything either of the older boys didn't want to do was whined over, usually rather profusely. Secretly, Sam and Castiel both thought that they each earned the title of drama queen much more than Sam did. "I was thinking…Our parents actually own a cabin up in the mountains. It's only around four or five hours away from here, I think. Gabriel and I haven't been there since we were kids. Usually it just sits empty, but they've never sold it."

Sam raised an eyebrow at his friend, "So, you're telling me we wouldn't have to spend the entire summer in a car with Dean?"

Castiel scoffed, "Of course not. Though I hardly see how that factors into the success of the trip. I do not understand all of your aversions to spending a great deal of time together in a car. It won't be nearly as bad as any of you are making it out to be."

Sam snorted derisively, "That's just because you've never been stuck in a car with Dean for almost ten hours at a time. Seriously though, having a place for home base while we look for dragons could have some seriously good benefits. Like beds that aren't shitty hotel beds. Might even make Dean and Gabe happier too."

Castiel nodded and pondered the situation. "There's a lake right by the cabin, if I'm not mistaken. Gabriel might remember better. It's a rather secluded place, perhaps twenty minutes or so from the nearest small town. An hour or two from the nearest large town. It could work though. One of us will have to call our parents and find out if we can actually use the cabin, but it is unlikely that they will deny us access to it."

It was left unspoken that as long as all they didn't actually want their parents' attention, Gabriel and Castiel's parents would give them almost anything they asked for. A cabin in the middle of the mountains probably wouldn't even register as an odd request, coming from Castiel. Sam was actually pretty certain that Gabriel had even made weirder requests than that. It was actually pretty tame, considering everything. He wondered if Cas would ask his parents for some sort of equipment for actually tracking down the dragons. It was more likely that Castiel would want to do things himself though. If nothing else, their upbringing had certainly made Cas and Gabriel quite independent.

"So we might have a home base for the summer. Dragons, a road trip, time away from society. Kind of sounds like heaven to me," Sam said, grinning slightly at Castiel. Cas returned the grin, relieved that Sam, at least, would not have to be won over.

**A/N: So this is my NaNoWriMo story. I'm working on editing, but it is complete, so I should be updating once or twice a week. I'd appreciate feedback greatly! The rating is mostly to be safe for now, though I am adding a bit in to the story here and there. Altogether, it should be around 9 chapters and over 50k words. I hope you enjoyed the first chapter!**


	2. Chapter 2

The next day saw Dean in a mess of stress over his Lit final. "I'm telling you Gabriel, she's going to fail me on purpose! All because I dropped my pen!"

Gabriel rolled his eyes as he opened the door to their dorm room, "Dude, she can't fail you for dropping your pen in class!"

"Not legally, but I don't think that's going to stop her from trying! I'm telling you, she's freaking insane!" Dean said exasperatedly. He didn't know what the crazy bitch's problem was, but he was going to be beyond pissed if he failed his final because she was PMSing. Seriously, it wasn't his problem! And he wasn't even the only one who had dropped something during class, but he was sure as hell the only one who got a dirty look.

"Perhaps she is a werewolf. It is nearly the full moon," Castiel said from where he was perched on Gabriel's bed.

"Shit Cas! We talked about you just popping up places!" Gabriel said, glaring at his younger brother. His brother's insane knack for scaring the shit out them by just suddenly being there hadn't gone away.

"I was here when you came in," Castiel pointed out, "It's not like I snuck in behind you."

Dean shook his head as he flopped face down onto his bed. Gabriel perched on the edge of his own bed, eyeing his brother curiously. "Where's Gigantor? He should be finished with classes by now too, shouldn't he? I thought you would make sure we were all here promptly as soon as Dean's Lit final was over to discuss the hunt for dragons."

Castiel waved his hand dismissively, "Sam will be here shortly. He went to drop our bags off in our room. You should cease calling him such names. Perhaps he would then stop using all the short related nicknames in retaliation."

"Yeah, right, because that's going to happen. Gabriel wouldn't stop teasing someone even if he could figure out how," Dean said, his voice muffled by the mess of blankets he was currently grumbling into.

"Is this pick on Gabriel day? I thought we were sending out memos for things like that now," Sam said as he came into the room, firmly shutting the door behind him. "I'm glad the school year is almost over. If I have to deal with Crowley being an ass much longer, we'll be finding a spot to bury him. Or you'll be checking me into a lovely padded room."

Gabriel's face wrinkled in disgust. Crowley had been getting worse and worse with the snide remarks and bullshit lately. Whatever the reason was, most of the dorm was beyond fed up with him. "For the record, no, this is not a pick on Gabriel day. Also, I'm pretty sure if we were stuck with him for one more month we wouldn't be the only ones trying to kill him. He's been making quite a few enemies lately."

"Typical," Sam said. "So, what did I miss? Did Dean have any catastrophic incidents today?"

Dean sat up, rubbing his hand over his face roughly, "I dropped my pen in class and now I'm pretty sure my bitch Lit teacher is going to fail me. For dropping a pen. She hates me. Cas thinks maybe she's a werewolf." One of Castiel's favorite past times was deciding which teachers could secretly be some sort of supernatural creature. It was just one of the many things that amused him about Castiel.

Sam shook his head, but wasn't surprised. It seemed like it had been a relatively peaceful day, or at least serious disaster free. That was something. No broken bones, melt downs, or aneurisms. They were doing pretty good for their last week of finals. "So your big incident was dropping a pen. I guess that means you're doing better than last semester, at least."

Dean threw his hands up, "What if she is a werewolf? Then I pissed off a werewolf. She might turn me or something and then you will have a werewolf for a brother! Then what will we do?"

Gabriel smirked widely, "Teach you to play fetch, of course." That, of course, had Sam doubled over laughing, and even Castiel grinned broadly. "Besides," Gabriel said as soon as Sam calmed down some, "She's not a werewolf. She's just a bitch. You have nothing to worry about. Maybe she just needs to get laid or something."

"You're fired," Dean grumbled. "I want a new roommate. Sammy! I demand that you switch me roommates. It's not like they check the dorms this close to the end of the year to see if you switched." Besides, having Cas as a roommate could definitely improve the last bit of the school year.

"Now why on earth would I trade you roommates? I value my sanity! Having Gabriel as a roommate is probably why we'll end up having to have you admitted to an insane asylum," Sam said, grinning.

"Hey now! I thought we had established that it is not, indeed, pick on Gabriel day! If we have to pick on someone, we should pick on Dean. He's clearly the easiest target, especially this time of year," Gabriel said, glaring halfheartedly at each of the brothers. He was a damned good roommate, and either of them would be lucky to have him! As a roommate! Not as anything else, of course, because that would be crazy. Also, Dean? Not exactly Gabriel's type.

Castiel rolled his eyes at his friends' antics. It wasn't uncommon for these sorts of shenanigans to happen. Although, Castiel wouldn't exactly complain about changing roommates. He was sure that Dean was an absolutely wonderful roommate, and Castiel was, of course, the best out of the three of them at putting up with him. Not that he minded putting up with Dean. He'd have to be a good roommate anyways, to put up with Gabriel as much as he did. Not that his brother was really that bad, but Gabriel was often hyperactive even on a calm day. Or maybe he was more mischievous than truly hyper, but it was much the same looking at it from an outside perspective.

"If you're all quite done picking on each other, I would like to discuss our summer plans now," Castiel said calmly, kicking Gabriel's back lightly with his foot.

Dean raised his eyebrow at Castiel, "When did it go from a possibility to 'our summer plans', anyways?"

"While Sam and I were discussing both the pitfalls and the merits of such a trip last night, after you rather rudely dismissed us from your room," Castiel said, looking rather smug.

Gabriel grunted, "Give it up Dean, you know it's going to happen, even if we dig our heels in the whole way. Besides, Cas, you were not rudely dismissed from the room. You were simply dismissed."

Dean rolled his eyes, "Fine, since the two of you have spent the time you ought to have spent studying making these plans, let's hear them!"

Sam rolled his eyes, "Unlike you, Dean, Cas and I keep up with our studying."

Cas waved his hand around dismissively, "Gabriel, Mother and Father have a cabin in the mountains, still, don't they? Sam and I discussed using that as our 'home base' for this trip, instead of being in a car all of the time. I do not wish to explain to our parents how I got caught trying to hide anyone's body."

Gabriel looked thoughtful for a moment, "Last I knew, they still had it. Shouldn't be hard to get the okay to spend the summer there. That's actually kind of stroke of genius. It's right by a lake, too, if I remember right. I know they have it cleaned a couple times a year, at least. We might have to air it out, but it shouldn't be too bad. It could work."

"Yes, that's what I thought. It's not too far from the nearest town, but it's still rather secluded. No close neighbors or anything, unless it's changed recently. So you can call Mother or Father and inquire about the use of the cabin for the summer. They seem to like you better, most days," Castiel said, and though the words probably should have sounded bitter, they were stated as fact with no change in tone. Of course, saying that they liked Gabriel better most days simply meant that they waited two seconds longer to dismiss him after finding out what he wanted. It was simply the way their family had always worked.

Dean sighed, "Well, I guess that kind of negates us looking for an apartment right away. That's an upside, at least."

Sam snorted, "Oh please Dean; don't even pretend like you're really dreading this trip. It's not even close to the worst way we've ever spent a summer. Cas said that the cabin should only be around four hours from here. That's actually not all that long in a car together, even. Shouldn't have trouble keeping from killing each other."

Gabriel grinned widely, "If you're good, Dean, we'll even let you drive! Mostly only because all you'll do is bitch if you aren't driving."

Dean smiled at that, "Great!"

"Gabriel, really? Did you have to say that? You know what this means, don't you?" Sam asked him incredulously. Gabriel blinked at him confusedly, tilting his head to the side in an imitation of the movement Castiel often did. In that moment, it was easy to tell the two of them were related.

Dean started cackling loudly as Sam groaned before explaining. "Driver picks the music. Four hours of listening to Metallica and Zepplin and god only knows what else."

Gabriel shrugged, and Castiel looked un-phased. "That does not sound like the torture you make it out to be, Sam," Castiel said lightly.

"You say that now. We'll see how you feel about it after the fact," Sam grumbled, glaring at Dean.

Gabriel shrugged, "You have an iPod, and headphones. I think you'll survive. It could be worse. We could do sing-a-longs and play weird driving games."

Castiel raised an eyebrow at his brother, "Don't most driving games involve road ways that are more crowded than what the mountain roads will be like?"

"I give up," Gabriel mumbled. "What else do we need to go over for this little disaster in the making?"

Castiel scoffed, narrowing his eyes slightly at his brother. "This trip will not, by any means, be a disaster. Little or otherwise. I will make certain of it."

"Of course it won't, Cas. Gabe's just being an ass," Sam said comfortingly to his roommate. Castiel gave him a small smile in return, and Dean rolled his eyes.

"Gabriel will handle dealing with our parents concerning accommodations. We have his car, that we can take, I am assuming?" Castiel said, raising his eyebrows at Gabriel. Gabriel had a small SUV that the four of them basically shared. Actually, the four of them shared a lot of things.

Gabriel nodded his consent, "It has plenty of room, so it makes sense. Besides, it's not like I can leave it here. I'm going to go use your and Sam's room to call the parentals." Gabriel left the room quickly, apparently wishing to get it over with as soon as possible.

The four of them shared most things, really. They'd known each other since high school, and then Gabriel and Dean had gone off to college together, Sam and Castiel following a year behind. Now Dean and Gabriel were finishing up their junior year of college, Sam and Castiel a year behind like always. The four of them had had almost seven years of looking after each other, being there for each other. It had made them closer than most people realized. So, of course they shared almost everything. It made sense, after spending that much time together, that they would. It was just a given, as well, that where one of them went, usually the other three followed. As far as Castiel knew, none of them resented that. He certainly didn't.

"So we've got music, a vehicle, probably a place to stay. Are we going to need to get a bunch of books and things on dragons?" Sam asked curiously.

Castiel nodded, "That might be pertinent. I am not certain whether or not there will be cell phone reception, but I know we won't have access to internet, unless we go into a town. I know there is a land line phone, and electricity of course. I don't think they have done any real renovations to update the house though."

Sam nodded, looking thoughtful, "So we should go to the bookstore, maybe tomorrow? And see what we can find. Unless we have them sent over night, we couldn't really get them online. And there's a town close by, so food isn't going to be much of an issue."

"Might want to pick up some maps of the area while you guys are at the book store. That could be helpful for when Cas starts dragging us through the mountains. Will we at least have a couple of days to settle in before you start wanting to explore?" Dean asked, somewhere between apprehensive and curious. It would be nice to have at least a couple of days of down time right after finals. They were all a lot less likely to snap at each other over stupid shit if they had a breather to wind down. Dean was starting to think that the trip might not be as horrid as he had originally thought. It was starting to sound less like a terrifying and hopeless adventure and more like a nice, well deserved vacation. He could get behind that. Besides, there was no way in hell that he would let Sam and Cas go by themselves. There would be no end to the trouble they could get into.

Dean watched as Castiel rummaged around in the messy blankets on Gabriel's bed, pulling out the notebook Dean had seen Gabriel with the night before, "Um, Cas, you might not want to use that one for whatever it is you're up to now." He loved Castiel entirely too much to let him open the notebook without a warning. Gabriel hadn't exactly reacted well to him trying to get a look at it, so he doubted Castiel was supposed to be looking at it either.

"What's wrong with that notebook?" Sam asked curiously, looking at Dean like he had sprouted a second head.

Dean coughed and shook his head, "Uh, nothing!" Sam gave him a suspicious look, but shrugged his shoulders.

Castiel ignored Dean and Sam both, and opened the notebook. He barely glanced through the first few pages, raising his eyebrow slightly, but making no comment, before he flipped to the back of the notebook and thumbed through a few of the pages, apparently finding a few blank. "Dean, I do not suppose you have a pen, or pencil lying around?"

Dean blinked at him before getting up to rummage through is bag and produce a pen, handing it to Castiel and sitting down next to him to look over his shoulder at what he was doing.

"So," Castiel started, "When we go to the book store, we need maps of the mountains and books on dragons… What else do we need from the store for this excursion?"

Dean watched as Castiel started writing out the list of things he apparently deemed necessary. "If there's a lake, I probably need new swim trunks. I'm pretty sure the only pair I have got a massive hole in them. No idea how, but I suspect Gabriel has something to do with it."

"Gabriel has something to do with what?" Gabriel said, striding back into the room with a triumphant smile on his face. "We have the cabin as long as we want it. They're sending us the keys to the place over night, and apparently upping our summer allowance so we can get whatever we need. I didn't tell them why we wanted the cabin for the summer…though I highly suspect they wouldn't have cared either way. So what is it that I supposedly had something to do with?"

"Dean thinks you're the reason behind the hole in his swim trunks," Sam said with a roll of his eyes.

"I think I would have remembered that," Gabriel said, eyeing the notebook in Castiel's hands. "Oh brother of mine, what are you doing with my notebook?"

"Making a list," Castiel said flatly, "What else would I be doing with it?"

Gabriel glared as Dean tried to cover a laugh and just ended up coughing. "Can't you have used one of Dean's notebooks for that?"

Castiel blinked confusedly at him, "Yours was closer. Do you sleep with it or something? It was under half of your bedding…"

Gabriel slapped his forehead, before moving forward to take the notebook from Castiel. "Give me that!" he growled, taking the notebook and gently tearing out the page Castiel had been scribbling on, "Next time you're going to steal someone's notebook, steal Dean's! Or, you know, take one that has a class name on the front! Unmarked notebooks are off limits!"

Castiel shrugged his shoulder, taking the page from Gabriel and scooting towards Dean. Dean eyed him warily, but Castiel just out the page to Dean's back and continued writing, "Really Cas? Do I look like a desk to you?"

"No, but I'm lazy and don't want to get up to find something else to use to write on. Your back is more convenient for me. Now hold still or I won't be able to read my writing," Castiel admonished when Dean started squirming slightly. Dean groaned, but stopped moving around while Sam and Gabriel laughed at him.

"You hear that Dean?" Gabriel said gleefully, "You're convenient! Isn't that nice?"

"You know, you still have to live with me when the school year is over, thanks to this little adventure coming up, so I would be nicer to me!" Dean said looking pointedly at the notebook that Gabriel had clutched tightly to his chest. Dean still didn't know exactly what was in the notebook, but it didn't take a genius to now it had something to do with Sam and Gabriel's affection for him. Gabriel just glowered at him while he sat down on Dean's bed next to where Sam was sitting on the edge. "Cas, can you hurry up with that? It's starting to itch," Dean whined.

Sam snorted, "Itch is code word for tickle, Cas, just so you know."

Dean glared at his younger brother, "Is not! It itches! I am not, by any means, even a little bit close to ticklish! So stuff it." Of course, Castiel knew that Dean really was ticklish. No reason to tell Sam that, though.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, Dean. What else are you putting on that list, Cas?" Sam asked, watching as Castiel jotted down things at a near constant pace.

Castiel paused in his writing for a moment, "Part of it is a list of the information I would like on dragons. The maps, of course. A list of snacks we all like for the drive. Dean's swim trunks…notebooks to write down any findings. That sort of thing. We should go to the department store while we're out tomorrow. It's right by the book store anyways, and we can get both things done at once and save time."

Sam nodded, "That sounds like a plan. We only have, what, two days left? Then the weekend…So when are we leaving?"

Dean looked thoughtful for a moment, "It usually takes us at least one day to get all of our shit put together. It's a good thing we know Gabriel's car is big enough to hold all our shit from experience. So, we can take Saturday to get our shit packed and squared away, and leave Sunday?"

Sam nodded, "That should give us plenty of time to get everything done."

"Great, so we'll leave Sunday morning…but not excruciatingly early. Do you two nerds actually need Dean and I for your plotting, or are you good to handle the rest of this on your own?" Gabriel asked them.

Castiel shrugged. "We can handle it. Is this you nicely excusing us from your room again?" Castiel asked with sarcasm heavy in his voice.

Gabriel snorted, "Yes, it is. I want a nap, badly. Someone kept waking up in the middle of the night to freak out."

"I did not!" Dean exclaimed, flipping his roommate off.

Sam rolled his eyes as he followed Castiel out the door. Before he closed it behind them, he poked his head back in, "We do the planning, you two jackasses can't complain about what we plan and pick!" Sam managed to get the door closed, laughing, before the shoe Dean threw at him connected.

Dean turned to give Gabriel an odd look, "You know Cas looked through the first like ten pages of that notebook, right?"

Gabriel shrugged, "There's nothing important in the first ten pages…I don't think. Besides, unlike some people, Cas wouldn't use any information that might be contained in the notebook for evil."

Dean rolled his eyes, "Please, like I would do anything that might make you whine incessantly for the entire summer. Which I now get to spend with you. Exactly how big is this cabin, anyways?"

Gabriel furrowed his brow in thought. "Hm, three or four bedrooms, I think. Two full bathrooms. Decent kitchen, if I remember right…Living room."

"And this is a cabin? Aren't cabins…smaller?" Dean asked, "Not that I'm not grateful for the space…"

Gabriel shrugged, "You've met my parents. They don't know the meaning of small. It's actually the smallest place they own, as far as I know. I might be off by a room or two. Neither Cas nor I have been there since we were little kids."

Dean shrugged, "The four of us are used to living in two rooms, and sharing the rest of the space with an entire building of people. A room one way or the other probably won't even register to any of us. Just think, a couple more days and the only crazy we'll have to put up with is the one we're good at handling."

**A/N - Well, that's chapter two! The chapters get a bit longer after this. I might get all of the chapters posted sooner, depending on how quickly I get the editing done!**


	3. Chapter 3

Sam and Castiel borrowed Gabriel's car to go and do the preliminary shopping for their trip the next day. Sam strongly suspected that they would end up with more things than they would actually need. Sam got the pleasure of driving, partly because that was the condition to Gabriel letting them take the car and partly because Castiel didn't drive often, and more often than not scared the shit out of whoever was riding with him. Castiel was very good at a lot of things, but driving was one the few things that he just never really got the hang of. Not that Sam actually minded driving.

"So," Sam said as they pulled into the parking lot of the book store they were going to, "Books on dragons and maps, right?"

"Hm," Castiel murmured, "Perhaps a sketch book for Gabriel."

Sam raised his eyebrows at Castiel, "A sketch book? For Gabriel? He can draw?"

Castiel shrugged, "He sketches sometimes. He's not bad at it. Besides, the notebook he's been doodling in is full, more or less. I wasn't aware he had such an interest in it until recently."

"Huh…Okay then. You wanted a couple notebooks too, but we can probably get those cheaper at the department store," Sam said thoughtfully. "I'm assuming you want to get Gabriel a nicer sketch book?"

Castiel nodded, "Yes, I think that would be good. Notebooks at the department store then…Shall we split up? You would know better than I what maps we'll need."

"Sure, I'll come meet you by the books on the supernatural when I'm done?" Sam asked. Castiel nodded, and the two of them went their separate ways, both of them hoping to get finished in the store quicker that way. Sam wondered why he had never known that Gabriel had any interest in drawing, but he wasn't completely surprised. Gabriel could be very creative. He wondered briefly what sort of things Gabriel enjoyed drawing, and how good he was. Was he interested in other kinds of art?

Sam shook his head, trying to rid himself of the errant thoughts of his friend. Just because he had a little crush did not, by any means, mean that he could stand around like an idiot in the middle of a book store obsessing about what Gabriel did with his free time. He made his way over to the maps, taking his time to make sure he found exactly what he needed. He knew Castiel would be with the books on dragons for quite some time, so he wasn't too worried about the time. It wasn't like they had anything else to do. Both of them had finished their finals earlier that day, and both Gabriel and Dean only had one a piece the next day. He wasn't sure how their professors did it, but they always had their finals scores by the Sunday morning after finals. He suspected that the TAs did the brunt of the simple grading and the professors only actually graded essays and shit.

By the time Sam had made his way to the supernatural section of the library a good thirty minutes had passed. He shook his head, grinning, when he found Castiel sitting cross legged on the floor with at least ten books surrounding him. "Finding what you need, Cas?"

Castiel jumped slightly; blinking up at Sam with wide eyes as though he had been caught doing something he ought not to do. "Almost. I believe that a great deal of the information in some of these books is faulty. It is disappointing how naïve some of the authors are. They all seem to believe that their perspective is the only one that matters or is correct. Of course, it isn't true. It makes finding the helpful books difficult. I'm almost finished, though."

Sam believed Castiel about the authors. With so little known about most supernatural creatures, everyone wanted to believe they were right, and that they knew everything about them. There was a plethora of conflicting information. Sam knew, he had taken several classes surrounding the paranormal and supernatural. It was all so interesting, but it was also difficult to find the truth in all of the myth. "So which pile is the pile we're getting so far?" he asked Castiel as he crouched down beside him.

Cas pointed to a small stack of five books without looking up from the one he was looking at. He finally closed the book, looking at it disdainfully. "I think those are the only ones that will be even mildly helpful. I still need to get Gabriel a sketchbook though. Then we can leave."

"Yeah, okay," Sam said as he bent to grab the stack of books Castiel had indicated. "Are all of these just basics on dragons?"

Castiel shrugged, "More or less, yes. I wasn't sure what sorts of dragons might be in the mountains, and none of the books seem to know what any of the dragons actual range for habitats is. It seemed silly to get a bunch of books on different kinds when we might not encounter most of them." Castiel got to his feet, quickly putting back the books he wasn't purchasing, and moving to find the journals and sketchbooks.

Sam was surprised at the amount of different types of sketchbooks and journals the small book store carried. "Wow, there's a lot to choose from. Are you getting something plain or something that, I dunno, matches his personality?"

"Was that the nice way of asking if I intend to purchase a rather ostentatious sketchbook for my brother?" Castiel asked Sam with a slight tilt to his head. Sam shrugged, flushing lightly at the look Castiel was giving him. "I think something in between. Or something that simply has a colored cover. Green or blue, do you think?"

Sam thought about it for a moment. "I think Gabe would like green more. What about that dark green one with the little filigree looking design?"

Castiel pulled the one Sam indicated off the self to study it. It was slightly smaller than a regular notebook, but thicker. The pages were thick, and the color of parchment, rather than the stark white of regular paper and the cover seemed thick and durable. Sam, Castiel decided, had a good eye for things like this, and for things Gabriel would most likely love. Gabriel, rather he admitted it or not, loved things that seemed antique or old fashioned, so this particular sketchbook was probably perfect for him. "Wonderful! We'll get this one, and you can give it to him when we get back."

Sam blinked at his friend like he was insane, "Uh, I thought you were getting it for him?"

"Well, you picked it out, so it makes more sense for you to give it to him. Besides, he'll like it more from you. Now, let's go check out. Department stores always take a very long time, and I would like to be back to the dorms sometime before midnight, if possible," Castiel grumbled that last part. It was still early afternoon, of course, but department stores were a horrible experience no matter what time it was. And the lines were always long. Usually they avoided department stores like the plague, but it seemed simplest to go to one.

The department store hadn't been quite the fiasco that Castiel anticipated, but it had come close. Part of that may have been his fault though. He had insisted on going through the camping things as well, even though they didn't really get anything. He and Sam had spent the most time trying to decide which snacks were a must, and which were likely not to get eaten. They'd gotten their notebooks, and new swim trunks for all of them. Of course, they had had fun picking out Gabriel and Dean's swim trunks, finding the weirdest ones they could for their brothers. Sam had warned them that if they weren't going to help, they couldn't actually complain about what was picked out.

"Alright," Sam said as they pulled back into the dorm parking and parked. "We should take the stuff up…we can't leave it in the car that long, and we should probably sort things out rather than just leave them in the bags like they are."

Castiel nodded, "Yes, then you can take Gabriel his sketchbook and their swim trunks. And, perhaps, get a picture of the looks on their faces."

Sam grinned at him, "I did warn them. I'll try. I doubt Gabriel will react much, but Dean's likely to throw a hissy fit. Though, since you did pick them out, if he throws anything at me or tries to kill me, I'm getting you back later."

Castiel waved his hand dismissively and started grabbing bags to haul up to their dorm. He frowned slightly, "It did not seem like this much when we were shopping."

"It never does," Sam said as they started to make their way to their room. "We probably won't get through even half the snacks we bought…but at least the only thing we'll have to stop for is cold drinks and bathroom breaks. It'll keep Dean from complaining too much."

"That is true," Castiel said as they got to their room and made their way inside. He didn't waste any time finding both the sketchbook and their brothers' swim trunks. He smiled innocently at Sam while he pressed the items into his roommate's arms. "There you are. You go do that, and I'll stay here and start sorting through the mass amount of snacks and things we probably won't even need."

Sam raised an eyebrow at him, "You were the one that insisted on most of it. Are you sure you don't want to be the one to give Gabriel the sketchbook? I mean, it was your idea and everything…"

Castiel shook his head resolutely, pushing Sam towards the door. "I already told you, you picked it out, you give it to him. Now get going."

Sam rolled his eyes, "Yeah, yeah. I don't see why I have to go do this alone. It's almost like you actually want to be rid of me or something!"

"Right, because I wouldn't have just told you to leave," Castiel said as he pushed Sam out the door and down the hall a bit. "Don't come back until you have completed your mission!"

Sam snorted and made his way to his brother's dorm room. He loved Cas, he really did, but sometimes he was just so weird. He wasn't sure why he kept insisting that he be the one to give Gabriel the sketchbook. It didn't make a whole lot of sense to Sam, but then, Castiel rarely ever made a whole lot of sense to Sam. He knocked once upon coming to Dean and Gabriel's dorm room, and then poked his head inside.

"You know," Gabriel said from his spot on his bed, which was actually made, Sam noted, "one of these days you or Cas is going to open that door and see something you really don't want to see." Gabriel shook his head slightly to move his slightly shaggy caramel colored hair out of his eyes as he studied Sam.

"Oh really now?" Sam asked, raising his eyebrows and looking down at Gabriel. Actually, now that he saw the room a bit; he noticed that the entire room was practically spotless. Even Dean's bed was made; his brother perched at the head of it, still going through notes for his last final. "Something you two need to tell Cas and I?"

Gabriel snorted and Dean looked up at him, green eyes filled with horror. "I'm sorry, what now? Just…no. I can't believe you would even be stupid enough to suggest something that…that…horrifying."

Gabriel turned to look sharply at Dean, "Hey now! Watch it mister!"

Dean grinned at his roommate and shrugged, "It's not like I was trying to offend you or anything. But let's be honest, even if we could get over the pure weird of it, we'd kill each other in a week." Dean turned back to study his brother, "You need something, or were you just coming to bug the shit out of us? Some of us still have finals left."

Sam rolled his eyes, "You each have one final left, Dean. You make it sound like you have twenty more to do, or something. Anyways, Cas and I just got back from our little shopping trip. He sent me to deliver your swim trunks."

Dean knew something bad was afoot by the twinkling in his brother's hazel eyes. He eyed his brother warily, and started when Sam through a bundle of brightly colored fabric at him that landed on his legs, then threw another bundle at Gabriel. Dean stared in horror as his brain registered the obscenely bright colors. He picked up the swim trunks, holding them as if they might contaminate him with Ebola or something equally as terrifying. There were neon pink swirls around bright purple and blue Hawaiian flowers. He heard the shutter sound that camera's make and looked up to see Sam grinning evilly at him with his phone held out. He narrowed his eyes, "Please, please tell me you're shitting me."

Sam's grin widened, "'Fraid not. Castiel actually picked them out. I don't particularly have a death wish. He even asked for a picture of the look on your face."

Gabriel started laughing nearly hysterically from the other bed. His own swim trunks weren't nearly as horrible as the ones Dean was holding up. Gabriel's were the same style, bright green swirling background with bright yellow and orange flowers. Dean narrowed his eyes, "Gabriel, your brother is a dick." Gabriel just shrugged and watched curiously as Dean set aside his notes and got up, heading towards the door.

"Uh, Dean? What are you doing?" Sam asked his brother uncertainly. Dean glanced over his shoulder at him with narrowed eyes, "I'm going to go have a word with your roommate!"

Gabriel snorted, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" Dean just grumbled and slammed the door behind him. "What's Cas doing anyways?" Gabriel asked Sam curiously, folding the swim trunks and setting them aside.

"He's sorting through all the crap we got at the store. Unless he got sidetracked reading one of the books on dragons," Sam informed him, plopping down on the edge of Dean's bed. He chucked the sketchbook that he'd still been holding lightly so it landed next to Gabriel on the edge of his bed.

Gabriel blinked at it curiously before picking it up and turning it over in his hands, face turned to surprise. He studied the sketchbook quietly, oblivious to Sam squirming anxiously across the room from him. It was a beautiful sketchbook, he thought. He highly doubted Cas would have told Sam about the contents of the notebook, but if he didn't, how would Sam have known he might like a sketchbook? Sam wasn't giving him odd looks, or rather, no odder than normal.

Before he got a chance to ask Sam about it, Sam was speaking, words tumbling out of his mouth quickly, "Cas said you might like it. Said that the notebook you'd been using was pretty much out of space, so we looked at the sketchbooks at the book store while we were there. I thought you might like that one…" Sam's words trailed off uncertainly as though he was unsure what Gabriel's reaction might be.

"It's perfect, really. Cas was right…my notebook is pretty much out of space. Thank you," Gabriel said, smiling softly at Sam. Sam grinned back at him. "I never actually thought of getting a real sketchbook…"

Before Sam could answer him, Dean stormed back into the room, glaring scathingly at Sam. "Your roommate," he said accusingly, "is a jerk. He absolutely refuses to take them back for something different. He said both of you guys got normal swim trunks with some sort of dragon print. Nice tame colors and everything. Why couldn't you have been a good brother and got me those too?" By the end of his rant, Dean sounded less angry and more whiny. "Also, your jerk roommate says he needs help organizing something or other. And he insists on seeing the picture you took. If you loved me at all, you would delete it."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Alright, Dean. I'll delete it. Right after I show Cas," he said as he made his way out of the room, waving his hand on his way out without turning around and ignoring Dean's indignant squeak.

Castiel didn't even look up when he did make it back to their room. It looked to Sam like Castiel had managed to make a huge mess out of their purchases. "Dean appears to be quite displeased with me at the moment. Was it necessary to tell him I picked them out?" he asked as he barely glanced up.

"Considering I was the one within distance of any projectiles, including his fists, yes. He's a lot more likely to hit me than you. I did manage to get the picture you wanted, though. I sent it to your phone. I sent it to Gabriel too. He might still try and kill me for that one," Sam looked doubtfully at the mess as Castiel checked his phone, grinning brightly at the picture. "What exactly happened here, Cas?"

Castiel put his phone back in his pocket, pouting at the mess, "I was trying to organize things, but I seem to just have made a rather large mess. Dean seemed to think it was funny. He also tried to steal a bag of chips…"

Sam snorted derisively, "Of course he did. Alright, so we'll separate them by type of snack, and put them back into the bags. Then tackle the rest of it." Castiel nodded and the two of them got to work sorting out the mess left by Cas's well-meaning flounder. It didn't take them long to get it sorted out, once Castiel had a system he could easily work with.

"Alright," Sam said, looking at the bags neatly lined up along the wall by the door, "Looks like that's it for that. Now, as long as we can keep Gabe and Dean out of the snacks, we'll be fine. I'd really like to not have to go back to the department store. Apparently they got bit by the cleaning bug…Their dorm room was damned near immaculate."

Castiel turned to blink at him, "Alien invasion?"

"Nah, I don't think so. Dean probably had a freak out about the last final and started cleaning shit. He does that sometimes, you know that," Sam said as he started tidying up his side of the room.

"True. But knowing that they'll have to clean it up again and pack…it just seems odd for him to have bothered." Castiel watched Sam move around the room curiously, "What exactly are you doing anyways?"

Sam was currently looking under his bed, his head and half of one of his shoulders stuck underneath it and his ass high in the air. Castiel quickly got his phone out and snapped a photo. Sam apparently heard the noise the phone made when he took the photo and jumped slightly hitting his head on the bed frame and groaned. Castiel snickered as he sent the photo to Gabriel with a winking smiley face attached to it, and sent a separate one to Dean without anything attached.

Sam glared at him, "What the hell did you just do?"

Castiel just smiled innocently at him, "Nothing of import. What are you doing half under your bed, anyways? Hm?"

Sam rolled his eyes, "You just sent a picture of my ass to Gabriel and Dean, didn't you? Maybe I should have traded roommates with Dean." He snorted and went back to looking under the bed. "I can't find my favorite hoodie. I thought it might have gotten eaten by the bed, but I don't see it down here."

Castiel tried to remember which of the hoodies Sam's favorite was. "The gray one with the black bird on it?"

Sam got up from the floor, brushing his hands on the legs of his jeans, "Yeah, why, have you seen it?"

Oh, Castiel had seen it alright. He knew precisely where it was, but he didn't think he should tell Sam that. Perhaps it would be better to let him find out on his own. "No, not recently," was all he said, sitting down on his bed and beginning to look through the books on dragons. It wasn't a lie, because he hadn't seen it in the last week or so.

"Why don't I believe you?" Sam asked, narrowing his eyes at Castiel skeptically. He knew that tone of voice. That was Cas's "I know something but I'm not going to divulge it unless it suits me" voice. It got directed at all of them rather consistently, so it wasn't a surprise to hear it, but what on earth could he know about Sam's hoodie that he wouldn't want to tell him?

Castiel studiously ignored Sam. Sam knew him well enough to know he was hiding something, he guessed. No surprise there, but it wasn't like it would hurt Sam not to know about this one little thing. Besides, it wasn't like the hoodie was actually lost. Gabriel had it. Gabriel had had it for something like a month now, as far as Castiel knew, perhaps a bit longer. Castiel wasn't certain how his brother had come to have Sam's hoodie, but he hadn't exactly asked either. He wondered if Dean had noticed that his roommate had his brother's hoodie. It wouldn't surprise Castiel if Dean did know, but perhaps had just not mentioned it.

Sam had apparently given up on finding the hoodie, as the next time Castiel looked over he noticed that Sam had gotten ahold of one of the books on dragons and was studiously reading it. He wasn't really surprised, Sam was almost as interested in the supernatural and paranormal as Castiel himself was. Besides, it would be nice if Castiel wasn't the only one to know anything about dragons before they started their trip, even if he wouldn't insist on going out looking for dragons right away.

"How many known types of dragons are there, anyways?" Sam asked suddenly, breaking the amicable silence.

Castiel glanced up for a moment to see that Sam was still intently reading the book, "Well over thirty that we know of, but some people guess that there must be at least two hundred with all of the different climates and habitats available to them. No one really knows…I doubt anyone ever will. Dragons are some of the most secretive creatures that have become visible to us."

Sam did glance up for a moment at that, "And you really think we'll be able to see one on this trip?"

Castiel shrugged, "I like to hope so, but to be honest, I have no idea. Don't tell Dean and Gabriel that, though. They will insist that the trip is redundant and silly. Even if we don't find any, I think the trip will be good for all of us."

Sam just nodded, going back to the book. He couldn't disagree with Castiel. They could all use some time away. It wasn't as though any of them were really struggling, but at the same time, it could get tedious spending all of your time in one place. He and Dean had been used to frequent and long trips when they were younger. It wasn't until high school that the trips stopped being so frequent. Sam guessed it would take a lot longer than the time already spent to get them over the constant moving around, if they ever did get over it.

The book, it turned out, was actually quite interesting. It focused on the basics of dragons at the beginning, then broke it down into more detailed explanations of what the author believed to be true concerning the topics. Maybe this would turn out to be a pretty interesting adventure after all. The more Sam read, the more he became interested in the creatures. This particular author believed that there were at least forty types of dragons in the United States alone, not to mention other countries.

Sam and Castiel both fell asleep reading that night. Dean wasn't surprised to see this at all when he checked in on them before bed. The two younger boys were used to it by now as Dean or Gabriel one always checked in before they went to bed, unless they had talked to one of them within the hour before. So when neither he nor Gabriel had heard from either one of them since Castiel's little picture message, he volunteered to be the one to do it for the night.

He carefully marked their pages with post it notes they kept when he moved the books and tossed blankets over the each of them. He turned off the light, heading out of the room quietly, calmly snagging a bag of cookies on the way out of the door. He started slightly when he heard Sam grumble at him that he could hear that, and that he had better not be taking any more than that. Dean grunted back, "Just go back to sleep, Sammy. It's just one bag. Night." He waited until Sam grumbled some more, returning the sentiment, before he left the room, closing the door softly behind him.

**A/N - I meant to get this posted sooner, but I was sick, and I just finished editing it. I hope you like it!**


	4. Chapter 4

Saturday rolled around, and amazingly, Dean didn't have any huge mishaps to speak of. Sam and Gabriel both kept teasing him that it was clearly a new record. Castiel might have agreed with them, but he wasn't speaking out either way about it. The four of them were constantly traveling between the two dorm rooms, making all of them grateful they weren't more than a few doors away from each other. Dean and Gabriel particularly were thankful, and would have whined consistently like they had the previous year if it had been any further. Of course, neither Sam nor Castiel understood why making the walk one floor up or down was that big of a deal. They gave up on trying to understand it early in the year, though.

Dean glanced around his and Gabriel's half packed dorm room. "It looks so freaking different in here with half our shit already packed in the car. It seems almost empty."

"That, Dean-o, is because the room really is almost empty. We don't have much left to get packed up. I think Sam and Cas are practically already finished, though, so we seem to be a bit behind," Gabriel said with mild exasperation.

Dean shook his head warily, "That's because they started packing up yesterday, and had all of the snacks packed up the night before that. Sometimes I'm amazed we're related to them at all. They two of them have a lot more in common than either of us has with them."

Gabriel shrugged, "It happens sometimes. Besides, the four of us aren't all that different than each other, some of us are just better at hiding our laziness."

They spent the rest of the day just generally annoying the shit out of each other once they were finished packing and loading the car with what they could. Surprisingly, it was a rather quiet evening, despite their fidgeting. Perhaps because they were used to the fidgeting during finals anyway, and they had just come off finals, so it wasn't actually a change in mood. By the time the four of them did settle down to sleep, most of the fidgeting had stopped, being replaced with the exhaustion that had been creeping up on them over the last couple of weeks.

Sunday morning dawned bright and early, well, for one of them at least. Castiel glanced at his roommate's sleeping form, shaking his head fondly. Sam was almost always an early riser, except for the first week or so of summer. Dean often joked that neither Sam nor Castiel understood the meaning of sleeping in. Of course, Dean and Gabriel could both easily sleep through an entire day. Castiel finished putting his night clothes in his bag, then started the task of getting Sam out of bed.

"Sam," Castiel murmured quietly. When he did have to wake up his roommate, he always started out quietly. Sam and Dean both reacted badly to loud noises while they were sleeping. Gabriel had found that out the hard way quite some time before after taking a fist to the face for yelling loudly while trying to wake Dean up. Dean still swore it was an accident whenever it was brought up, but they all had their doubts about how true that actually was.

Castiel had to call Sam's name several times before he even began to wake. Sam was easy to wake up in comparison to Gabriel and Dean, though, and the two of them would have to wake up their older brothers next. Both of them had flat out refused to set an alarm clock, insisting that it was against the rules of the first weekend of summer. Castiel had rolled his eyes and resigned himself to being everyone's alarm the next morning.

Sam finally sat up, squinting his eyes against the bright light of the summer morning. "What time is it, even?"

Castiel smiled slightly, "After nine. Neither of them will be able to complain. Besides, it was my understanding that by leaving all of the planning to us that they were not allowed to complain at all."

Sam grinned back at him sleepily, "Yeah, but we both know that that won't actually stop them from complaining. Alright…let's go get the monsters we're related to up so I can get ready…"

Dean and Gabriel were absolute menaces to get up, which Sam and Castiel had already known, but this time might have set a new record on the swearing end of it at least. Dean's initial response to Sam gently poking him and telling him to get his lazy ass up was to say, "Go the fuck away, damn it! It is absolutely not freaking time to be awake!" Okay, not quite a new record, but there was still time for that to happen.

Gabriel was less vocal and more violent, Castiel barely managed to dodge the first couple pillow swipes Gabriel sent his way. For someone that clearly wasn't really awake, he had good aim. By the time their older brothers were both awake and somewhat functioning it was after ten a.m. and Castiel was grumbling about staying on schedule. Castiel and Sam both gave up on trying to have any semblance of a conversation with either of them until after they had been awake more than an hour. Of course, this meant that they got into Gabriel's car with two grumpy and still slightly disoriented older brothers, but at least neither one of them was cussing the younger two out any more.

Dean was considerably more chipper after they stopped for coffee and he was allowed to put his music on. Gabriel was still grumbly, but he was half asleep against the door of the car in the back seat where he was sitting with Sam, so Castiel didn't suppose it mattered too much. Sam, Castiel noted, had indeed kept is iPod and headphones out, looking half asleep himself. The car was relatively quiet that first hour, with Dean only occasionally humming or singing along to the songs that played. Gabriel and Sam had apparently fallen back asleep, and Castiel had spent the time making notes while he skimmed through one of the more believable books on dragons.

The driving part of the trip was turning out to be a lot more anti climatic than any of them had thought it might be. Castiel was sure that each of them had considered that there might be at least some small disaster in that first hour, but everything was rather peaceful. Castiel sincerely hoped it would last the entire road trip to the cabin, because he was sure that once they were there it would be a form of minor chaos. Dean and Gabriel especially had insisted that the first few days they were there they should rest and check out the surrounding area at a leisurely pace. There was plenty of time for them to do more thorough exploration, so what was the rush? Castiel didn't mind, since they had all come along relatively peacefully.

Castiel snapped out of the slight daze he was in when they pulled into a gas station he hadn't even realized was coming up. He raised an eyebrow at Dean who smiled slightly, then turned and tapped both boys in the back seat on the knee. "Hey, we're at a gas station! If you need something to drink or a bathroom, now is the time."

Sam glared slightly at his brother, but got out of the car, stretching his long legs. Gabriel groaned, but followed suit, foregoing the stretching to stumble towards the door to the gas station, presumably in search of the bathroom. Dean followed closely behind, Sam and Castiel trailing not far behind him. The gas station was practically empty, a good thing since apparently all of them needed to go to the bathroom. It was clean, thankfully. Castiel wondered how much traffic it saw, being located in the foot hills of the mountain, but not actually located in a town.

There was a mild tussle over whether or not Gabriel should be allowed to have coffee, Dean coming down strictly on the no side of the argument. "Gabriel drinking coffee in confined spaces is not a pretty picture! So not only no, but hell no."

Sam had been on Gabriel's side of it, but Dean did have a point. Gabriel wasn't absolutely horrible, but if he got bored, he would be irritating to no end. "Dean does have a point, Gabe. You don't want Dean to tie you to the roof of your own car, do you?"

Gabriel proceeded to pout at Sam for several minutes, but didn't actually retaliate beyond some minor whining. As first incidents of the trip went, this one was simple and quickly over. By the time they had checked out and were back in the car, Gabriel was distracted annoying Sam and was leaving Dean and Castiel alone for the most part. Not that Castiel particularly cared, but Dean seemed relieved when Gabriel shifted his attention solely onto Sam.

Sam, it seemed, was less amused. He finally managed to get a word in edge wise about five minutes into Gabriel's ramble about why chocolate was the most superior of all sweets. "Gabe, are you even taking breaths here?"

Gabriel blinked at him, "Of course I'm breathing. I haven't passed out from lack of oxygen, have I?"

Sam shook his head, "No, but I'm not sure why you haven't. I was relatively sure that you didn't pause long enough in that entire five minutes to actually take a breath."

Dean snorted, "See all the fun stuff you miss out on when you don't usually see him this soon after he wakes up? He's worse with the coffee. Not that you don't know that, but with the amount of coffee he drank this last couple of weeks with finals he's probably still running off a caffeine high."

Castiel and Sam were both shaking their heads, while Gabriel sat there and tried to look innocent. "I'm not that bad. Besides, it's better than being a complete ass for half of the day," Gabriel grumbled, sending a half assed glare Dean's way.

"Yeah, well," Sam started, "Neither Cas or I try to beat the crap out of people with pillows upon waking up either. So you lose and Cas and I win this one. Besides, both of you are grumpy in the mornings."

Dean waved a hand dismissively over his shoulder, "Not everyone can be a morning person Sam. You're just jealous because Gabriel and I are normal people, and you and Cas are freaks of nature."

Castiel was used to these kinds of arguments, the ones that were really more jesting than actual arguing. There were usually several of these jesting arguments a day, and in an odd and slightly dysfunctional way it was how they let each other know that they truly cared.

By the time Castiel had started paying attention to the conversation again, Dean and Gabriel were discussing the directions to the cabin that his parents had sent along with the keys. "I think we're only a couple of miles away from the first turn…and that should be to the left," Gabriel said, looking up from the paper he was holding.

Ten minutes later when they hit a dead end, Dean was glaring over his shoulder at Gabriel, "A left, huh? Are you sure about that? Because apparently, we can't actually go to the left here. Because there isn't really a left."

Sam snickered as he looked over Gabriel's shoulder at the directions and map he was looking at. "It would help if he was reading it right side up," Sam said, gently taking the map out of Gabriel's hands and flipping it over before snatching away the written instructions as well. Gabriel pouted at him slightly, but only sighed, crossing his arms lightly. Sam grinned, perusing the map, "It looks like we were supposed to stay on that road a little longer, then, at Widow's Peak Road, take a left. Then we shouldn't have to turn anymore until after we go through Jasper Ville."

Dean nodded, turning the vehicle around, "I'm assuming Jasper Ville is the town we're close to? How far is the cabin from there, anyways?"

Castiel shrugged, "Jasper Ville is the town, but it isn't very big. Only little local stores, really. One grocery store and some small shops. It's around twenty minutes from that cabin, perhaps a little closer to thirty."

"How confusing are the directions after the town?" Dean asked, glancing into the rearview mirror at Sam.

"Looks like three turns to hit the private road that leads to the cabin. And it also looks like they own something like sixty or seventy acres around the cabin; lake included. The private road looks to be about two miles long by itself, but it shouldn't be hard to find," Sam told his brother, nodding certainly at the last.

"Alright then, here's to hoping we don't get lost again," Dean grumbled.

Gabriel frowned at him, "One dead end does not constitute being lost!"

Sam patted Gabriel's arm affectionately, "Of course it doesn't. Dean is just being grumbly."

The drive up to Jasper Ville was uneventful, but the scenery was beautiful. They saw several different types of wild life, from deer to rabbits and squirrels. The woods were fairly thick in some spots, and they only passed through a couple of meadow like clearings. There was a small river, or large creek, depending how you looked at it, ran alongside the road and didn't veer off until they hit the town. The town itself was rather like Castiel and Gabriel had described to them; small with very few shops, though it did seem to sprawl out a little. It had a quaint feel to it, like it would be a quiet place to live. It was also almost literally one of those towns where if you blinked you were likely to miss seeing half of the town.

Sam directed Dean through the next few turns and finally onto the private road that led to Castiel and Gabriel's parent's cabin. The private road wasn't paved like the rest of the road, but instead just smoothly graded dirt with only a handful of bumps along it. Pulling up to the slightly sprawling cabin, all four of them let out a sigh of relief. They had only stopped once on the way and the only one who was short enough not to have cramped legs was Gabriel.

Dean raised his eyebrows, he'd always thought of cabins as small buildings, but this one was like a normal sized house, but gave the appearance of the stereotypical cabin in every other way. "Alright, well, someone have the key?"

Gabriel nodded, tugging it out of his pocket and heading towards the door. "Mom said that it was just cleaned about a month ago, so it shouldn't be too bad. We'll probably have to open the windows for the rest of the day, at least part way, but other than that it should be fine," he said as he turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open. The four of them trudged into the house, with a reminder from Castiel about wiping their feet on the mat outside the door.

Sam and Dean both stopped shortly inside the house, taking in the décor. The furniture was all dark woods with greens and blues, nothing harsh about it. The floors were hard wood, with area rugs spread out here and there, keeping to the green and blue theme. They were both relieved to see that there weren't any animal heads hanging anywhere. Dean voiced that relief out loud without realizing it.

Gabriel laughed, "You really think my mother would ever stay anywhere that had a head of any sort hanging from the wall?"

Dean shrugged, "Point. It's actually nice."

Castiel tilted his head to the side slightly, "And what exactly were you expecting here?"

"No clue. Stereotypical mountain man things? Hunting lodge décor maybe? Didn't even think that your mom probably had everything designed to her specifications," Dean answered back honestly.

Sam snickered at his brother, but started to explore, "I like it. It's kind of calming. Definitely a nice change of pace to the dorm rooms. I'm so glad we're planning to do the apartment thing this coming year. I could die happy never seeing the inside of another dorm room."

Everyone pretty much agreed with that one. They continued to explore, finding that the dark woods with blues and greens thrown in went through the entire cabin, not just the living area. The kitchen and dining room were nestled together along one side of the house, connected together. A decent sized heavy oak table and chairs took up most of the smaller dining room space, while the kitchen had a decent amount of counter space, a stainless steel refrigerator that looked relatively new, and gas stove that didn't look too old, but obviously hadn't seen much use either. There was even a dish washer. On the other side of the living area was a hallway that led to three bedrooms, a study, and a bathroom at either end of the hallway, along with two hall closets.

"Okay," Gabriel said, herding all of them into the living area, "We have to decide who is going to sleep where. There's three bedrooms, but the one Cas and I shared when we were kids has two beds."

"We could always switch out," Sam started, "It might be a pain, but then we'd all get our own room for at least part of the summer."

"That sounds like more work…that would mean that we'd actually have to either keep our shit together, or spend an entire day switching out rooms," Gabriel pointed out.

Sam and Castiel gave both Dean and Gabriel flat looks. Castiel rolled his eyes, "It would only mean more work because both you and Dean are lazy, and only clean when you have to."

"It's not like we let things get dirty," Dean informed them.

"Just messy," Gabriel added with a nod.

"I think," Dean said, turning to Castiel, "We should make those two share a room, since Sam is the least likely of us to maim Gabe."

"Hey now!" Sam glared at Dean slightly, "If we're going by that logic, you and Castiel should share the room, that way I don't maim you, and no one maims Gabriel."

"In the interest of getting this settled before dark so we can still go into town to get supplies, I agree with either of Sam's arrangements," Castiel spoke the words softly, wandering around the room.

Dean conceded, deciding it was better than getting stuck with Gabriel as a roommate for the summer. Though, in all fairness, Gabriel was actually a great roommate, most of the time. Besides, it would mean more time with just Castiel, without them having to worry about Sam and Gabriel interrupting them. They started lugging things in from the car, Sam and Castiel quickly taking over organizing the snacks that were left over, and things that went in the living area. The dvds had all been packed together, since there was a TV and a dvd player, so it wasn't like they would be kept packed during the summer. There was also a stereo system on the entertainment center, in a cubby hole next to the medium sized flat screen.

It didn't take them long to get everything inside and get what little common things they had put away. Dean, however, seemed to be tired of being in the car. "Do we really have to go to town tonight?" he practically whined at them.

Castiel frowned at him, "If we do not go into town tonight for supplies, the only food we will have is junk food, and water to drink. Considering none of us has had a real meal today, yes, I would think that we do indeed need to make a trip into town."

Dean grudgingly got into the driver's seat again, "Why do you have to make it sound so reasonable?"

"Because it is reasonable. If you want to eat something besides chips, we need to get supplies," Castiel informed him.

"It's not like town is two hours away, Dean. Suck it up. When we get back, we can relax. Won't have to leave the cabin for at least a day or two," Sam told his brother, trying hard not to roll his eyes at him. More proof that Dean was a drama queen.

The drive into town was mostly quiet after Dean stopped whining, and they managed to get to the small grocery store without further mishaps of any sort. They attracted a lot of attention upon entering the store, Castiel assumed it was because the town didn't see too many new comers, except for the occasional hiker or people that rented other cabins in the mountains. Though, Castiel knew there simply wasn't a lot of traffic on this side of the mountains. A lot of it was privately owned, and this far up there weren't any public trails. It was the wrong area of the mountain range for that.

They quickly decided that it would be easiest to get two carts for this little shopping trip, since the cabinets in the kitchen had been completely bare. "Alright," Sam said, "can we try to include some real food in this mess, instead of just buying a bunch of frozen shit that can be microwaved or baked?"

Dean glanced up at him, "I guess this means you want green things too, then?"

"Yes," Castiel said, "we would like salad and vegetables. Maybe even some fruit…"

Gabriel stopped in the middle of the isle, "Alright, new plan! We're going to split up for this. I'd say Sam and Cas should make one team, but there's no telling what we'd end up with. So, I'll go with Sam, and you two," he pointed at Dean and Castiel, "go together. There are ten isles. Sam and I will cover the five by the produce, and you two cover the other five. That gives you guys the frozen section too. We'll meet at the meat counter in like…thirty minutes or something."

Gabriel didn't take charge of situations often, usually he let Dean handle that, but sometimes he could be a bossy little shit. Sam was dragged behind him as Gabriel pushed the cart down one of the middle isles, apparently the one they were going to start at. Surprisingly, Gabriel didn't argue much with anything Sam put into the cart, so Sam responded in kind. By the time they had made their way to the produce section, Cas and Dean were headed towards them. The cart Dean was pushing was full, due to the fact that he and Cas had had the drink isles.

"Hey, we even managed to get finished soon enough to keep Sam's weird obsession with all things green and leafy in line!" Dean exclaimed; snickering as Sam stuck his tongue out at him.

"I do not have an obsession with all things green and leafy. Where do you come up with these things anyways? Just because you have an aversion to any sort of food that might be the slightest bit healthy for you!" Sam replied, giving his older brother a look that clearly said he didn't think much about his eating habits.

"Hi!" a voice chirped from behind them as they were inspecting the bagged salad options. Gabriel's eye twitched slightly in response to the slightly high pitched voice. Gabriel and Sam turned around to inspect the new comer, as Dean and Castiel were already inspecting some of the fruit. A relatively short (everyone was short to Sam, more or less) slightly mousy looking girl stood there looking at them with excitement written all over her face. "You must not be from around here! I would have recognized you if you were. What brings you to Jasper Ville?"

Gabriel narrowed his eyes slightly. The girl might have been okay under other circumstances, but no way did he like the way the girl was shamelessly ogling Sam. Only he was allowed to do that. "My family owns a cabin up the mountain," Gabriel informed her shortly. Whoever she was, she absolutely did not need to know their exact location. Or he might be hiding a body after all.

"Oh! That's great! I've lived here all my life! My name's Becky! How long are you staying here? What're your names?" The girl, Becky apparently, was inching closer and closer to Sam, who was trying to subtly use Gabriel as a shield. It was interesting to see the giant of a guy trying to hide behind someone about a half a foot shorter than him. Funny, even, to see Sam visibly frightened of a girl even shorter than Gabriel. Dean, Gabriel noticed, was laughing quietly from next to the apples, while Castiel stood there with his head tilted slightly, looking vaguely confused as to why Sam was trying to make himself disappear behind Gabriel.

Sam mumbled, "Just part of the summer. We don't know yet. This is Gabriel, and I'm Sam." Becky, whom Gabriel was now trying to devise a plan to get rid of, scooted just a bit closer to Sam, who nearly tripped over his own feet dashing behind Gabriel and to the other side of him.

Becky beamed up at him regardless, as if she hadn't even realized that the movement had been meant to get him away from her. In other circumstances, Gabriel might have found this amusing, except for the part where there was no way in hell he was letting the little mouse get anywhere near his Sammy. "That's great! If you ever need anyone to show you around town, I'm not hard to find!"

"I'm sure you're not," Gabriel mumbled under his breath. Dean was signaling to him that they could go, because apparently he and Castiel had managed to get a decent amount of produce while Becky was harassing them. It seemed like they'd made it to the meat counter too. How long had she had them cornered there? He randomly grabbed a couple of bags of salad and told her, "Well, looks like we need to get going! It was…nice meeting you! Bye!" Gabriel said in a rush as he pulled Sam along with him as he made his way towards the check outs and toward their brothers. Thankfully, the crazy woman had stayed by the salads, but the looks she was still giving Sam made Gabriel narrow his eyes all over again.

Dean had the good sense to wait until they were loading the car with the groceries before he mentioned what Gabriel had quickly dubbed in his mind as the "Becky Incident". Dean managed to catch his brother's eye and wiggle his eyebrows suggestively, "So, what was all that, hm?"

"Some freaky chick with no sense of personal space," Sam told him shortly, giving Dean a bitch face in response.

Castiel still seemed confused about the matter. "I don't understand. Why was she freaky?"

"She understood the concept of personal space even less than you do, Cas," Gabriel tried to explain to his brother. Castiel had never really adopted the policy of personal space, especially where it concerned his friends and his brother. As far as any of them could tell, he honestly didn't understand the concept of it. They had finally given up with it, since teaching Castiel something he didn't understand (like most common social behaviors) was an almost impossible feat; especially because he didn't seem all that interested in learning them.

Castiel merely blinked at him before shrugging and continuing on with loading the mass amount of groceries into the car. This wasn't unusual either; Castiel often ignored such discussions if he didn't understand the content. He never really stopped listening in, but disregarded the information unless he decided it would be useful.

"I dunno Sam, she was kind of cute," Dean said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively again. It was common knowledge amongst the group that all of them were bisexual, even most of the people that knew them off handedly knew that. It wasn't something any of them had ever really tried to hide, except for part of their time in high school.

"Sure, in a creepy kind of way. She had potential stalker written all over her. Plus, she was totally creeping me out. If you like her so much, you deal with her!" Sam practically growled at his brother.

Dean put his hands up, still grinning minutely anyways. He rather enjoyed riling his brother up, but he knew, usually, when to stop. Of course, right now he was riling up Gabriel too, and sometimes that could be dangerous. Gabriel could have a temper, he knew. Usually it was directed everywhere but at his friends and brother, but Dean had been on the wrong end of that temper a couple of times, usually over really stupid things. Gabriel, for all he seemed the most laid back guy in the world, had certain buttons that you just didn't push. Apparently, anyone flirting with Sam was now one of those buttons. Or maybe it was just Sam that was one of those buttons. It wouldn't surprise Dean. He was pretty sure that Gabriel had even stolen one of Sam's favorite hoodies, but he hadn't bothered to call him out on it. Out of the small handful of people Sam had dated, and the much larger handful of people that had pursued Sam, Gabriel was the only one he had ever hoped Sam might actually end up with.

The ride back to the cabin was relatively quiet, mostly because Sam still seemed relatively freaked out by the whole incident and because Gabriel was being snarly. By the time they were finished unloading the car the mood had dissipated, unable to withstand the way the four of them easily fell into place around each other. They'd never had an issue just being themselves around each other, and it showed the most in times when one of them started out irritated, and the mood just drifted away after simply doing normal things together.

"Alright," Castiel said as they finished putting away the groceries, "Someone will have to fix something for dinner tonight. I'm going to go set up in the study."

Gabriel blinked at his brother, "Set up what?"

"My dragon research, what else?" Castiel said sarcastically, leaving the kitchen.

Dean was backing out of the kitchen slowly as well, as if moving slowly would keep the other two occupants of the room from realizing he was leaving. Gabriel narrowed his eyes at him, "And just where do you think you're going? You can't possibly be going to help Cas, because you have absolutely no idea what he's even been doing research wise."

"I can learn," Dean told him.

"Oh no you don't. You get to help me with dinner. Castiel will inform us of his research later anyways, so you, Dean, are stuck with me," Gabriel informed him, keeping his eyes narrowed.

This, Dean knew, was punishment for poking about the crazy chick at the store, "But what about Sam?"

"I get to go help Cas set up his research, because unlike some of us, I actually know what he's been doing. I've been helping him, so I'm a lot less likely to get in his way than you two are. Besides, it would do the two of you some good to actually learn to cook." Turning to leave, Sam glanced back over his shoulder, "Try not to burn the cabin down with us in it, okay?"

"He does know we have absolutely zilch worth of cooking skills between the two of us, right?" Dean asked Gabriel uncertainly.

Gabriel shrugged. "Pretty sure that's what the warning was about. Alright, what's something easy enough we ought to be able to cook it between the two of us?"

"Um, some sort of pasta dish? I have no idea. They shouldn't have left things like this up to us. You know this is probably a serious recipe for disaster. Can't we just find something that we can stick in the oven?" Dean asked, whining a bit to his friend.

Gabriel raised an eyebrow at him, "You prepared to deal with Sam and Cas's distaste? Because when they get prissy, and you know they will, you're the one that gets to deal with them. I want no part of the death glares the health squad will throw our way."

Dean crossed his arms over his chest, huffing, "Fine, you've made your point. So, should we cook pasta then?"

Gabriel hesitated a moment, "Yeah, I guess we can. We could probably throw together a salad to go with it. That might distract from the fact we can't actually cook. It might get the health squad off our backs too. I think I saw some garlic bread in this mess too."

"Alright," Dean sighed, running a hand through his hair, "pasta, garlic bread, and a salad. Are we going to try to cook some sort of meat to go in it, too? Do we use the white sauce or the red? I'm pretty sure there are both."

Gabriel blinked, "Let's just not get too far ahead of ourselves here. I'd say no meat for tonight. It won't kill us. We can go with alfredo sauce, which, in case you didn't know, is the white one we got."

Dean shrugged and started pulling out the pasta, sauce, and other ingredients while Gabriel produced the pans from one of the cabinets. They started attempting to put the meal together, making more of a mess than was probably strictly necessary. Not fifteen minutes later Sam came rushing into the kitchen looking stricken.

"What's that smell?" he asked with his brows furrowed. "Are you burning something in here?"

Dean shook his head, "We can't be burning anything! We don't have anything on the stove yet besides the water for the pasta. And you can't burn water, right?"

Gabriel tilted his head to the side as Sam strode briskly to the stove and turned off the burner hurriedly, "Yeah, actually, you can burn water. I know neither of you are really capable of cooking, but honestly!" He moved the pan of water off of the burner and onto a pot holder that was on the counter so the water could cool. He turned to Dean, "You go. Just, go help Cas or something, okay? Gabriel and I will handle the cooking." That, apparently, was all Dean needed to hear in order to beat a hasty retreat. He shot a smug look at Gabriel as he departed.

"Why do I have to stay?" Gabriel asked, whining slightly at Sam. He would get Dean back at some point. He had been the one that was supposed to be manning the stove anyways, not Gabriel. Gabriel wondered briefly if it had occurred to Dean that burning the water might get such results. If Gabriel found out Dean had managed to do it on purpose, Sam might need a new brother.

Sam narrowed his eyes slightly at him. "You get to stay because someone is damn well going to help me cook! One of you, at least, needs to at least be able to boil water without burning it! It isn't like it's actually difficult. Also, it isn't like it will kill you to spend some time with me." Sam actually didn't mind cooking, and Cas was getting relatively grumpy with trying to get his research sorted out just so. When the two of them had noticed the smell coming from the kitchen, Castiel had promptly ordered Sam out of his study and to the kitchen to make sure their brothers hadn't set something on fire. Sam might have been aiming for a little bit of revenge by sending Dean in, though he doubted it would work out the way he was hoping for. It never seemed to with those two.

Sam set Gabriel up with getting a salad ready and constantly checking on the water so it didn't burn, again, while Sam got some chicken out to cook. He highly suspected that the only reason there hadn't been some sort of meat out to be cooked was because neither of them had thought it a good idea. No matter, he could cook chicken well enough, and since it was going in the pasta sauce, that would make it even easier. Making dinner turned out to be relatively easy without Dean in the room, something Sam should have remembered from past experiences. It was funny, because cooking that involved a grill was right up Dean's alley, but cooking on a stove seemed to escape him somehow.

Gabriel was surprisingly easy to work with in a kitchen, so long as you gave him very specific instructions. Otherwise he tended to get distracted by almost anything, which might have been how they had managed to burn water in the first place. It wasn't long before they were setting the table in the dining room. Sam went to get Dean and Castiel so they could start dinner while Gabriel finished setting things up.

Of course, Sam wasn't quite prepared for the scene he walked in on. Dean was sitting in the office chair, Castiel looming over him and pointing a finger down at him accusingly. "How many times did I tell you not to spin the chair, Dean? How many?"

Sam held in his laughter, with a lot of effort, and continued to watch his brother get scolded. Dean tried to look innocent, "But Cas, I was bored! You won't let me touch anything! It's not like I don't understand the concept of organizing notes or something," Dean said with a whine added on for good measure.

Castiel rolled his eyes, "If I wouldn't let Sam organize the notes, why on earth would I let you? And fifteen Dean. I told you at least fifteen times not to spin the damned chair." Sam raised a brow in surprise. It wasn't often that Castiel used any form of a curse word. Cussing wasn't something Castiel had adopted as he had gotten older like the rest of them had. It was odd to hear him do it.

"I had to amuse myself somehow!" Dean informed him, looking at the finger that was still pointing down at him as though he might like to bite it.

Cas narrowed his eyes a bit more, "And you had to do it in this room? You had a whole house to terrorize, but you picked this room?"

"Sam told me to come help you after I may have accidentally sort of burned the water," Dean explained in a rush.

"Do I even want to know how you managed to burn the water in the first place?" Cas asked, withdrawing his finger. When Dean only shrugged at him, he huffed and turned around so he was facing the door. He looked mildly surprised to see Sam there. "Yes?"

Sam cleared his throat awkwardly, feeling as though he may have been intruding on a moment that Castiel, at least, deemed rather private. "I was actually just coming to tell you that dinner was ready. And Gabriel is now capable of making an edible salad with more than lettuce in it and boiling water," Sam paused, "At the same time. But only if you give him very clear instructions. And make sure he doesn't get distracted. So, basically, he just has to have supervision."

Castiel's face did a funny movement that looked as though it might be trying to convey a mix of confusion, uncertainty, humor, and fear. "And you left him alone with the food?"

Sam blinked, then turned and walked quickly back to the dining room, trails of Dean and Castiel's laughter hot on his heels. He was relieved when the worst that appeared to have happened was that Gabriel had gotten hungry and started eating a piece of the garlic bread. "You didn't do anything horrid to the food, did you?" Sam checked with Gabriel.

Gabriel looked up at him in surprise. "Of course not. Then I'd have to cook something else to eat! Why on earth would I actually create more work for myself?"

Sam glared slightly at Dean and Castiel as they made their way into the room, "I was just checking. Alright, let's eat. Dean and Cas get to clean up the kitchen."

Dean groaned, but Castiel didn't look the slightest bit perturbed. "It is not as though there are that many dishes Dean, and it will not kill you to help me clean up the kitchen." Dean grumbled his assent, and the dinner went smoothly after that, as did the rest of the night. They settled on watching movies, and doing very little else.

**A/N - Well, that's it for chapter four! I keep meaning to get these up sooner, and it doesn't seem to be happening. I probably won't get around to posting another chapter until after Christmas. I hope everyone has a good holiday!**


	5. Chapter 5

The next day didn't dawn bright and early for any of them. In fact, by noon they were all still asleep, which had to be some sort of new record for Castiel. Gabriel finally stumbled out of his room at ten after noon, grumbling about food and why sleep should be more thoroughly pursued. He was absolutely shocked to notice that he was the first person out of bed and actually moving around that morning, even if he was rather zombie like at the moment. He would have put money on the fact that Castiel would be up before him, and usually Sam too. This was just simply unheard of. Dean stumbled out of his own room about that time as well, looking around him quickly.

He turned to Gabriel with a mild shock written across his face, "Are they seriously not up yet? Do we need to check and make sure they haven't died?"

Gabriel shrugged his shoulders sleepily, "I have no idea. You're the one sharing a room with Cas. But I'm guessing that they did a lot more studying for finals and were a lot more worn out than we realized. It might explain why Castiel was so crabby yesterday evening. Actually, Sam was getting that way too. We'll just leave them be. The chances of them having died are pretty slim, and they probably really need the sleep."

Dean nodded, making his way to the kitchen as quietly as he could, and only managing to stub his toe once along the way. Gabriel trailed after him, watching as Dean opened the cabinets until he found what he was looking for, which turned out to be the ten or so different types of cereal they had purchased the day before. "While you're at it," Gabriel murmured, "I'll take some of the peanut butter one."

The two of them were about half finished with their breakfast of cold cereal by the time Sam and Castiel stumbled into the kitchen groggily. Sam blinked sleepily as he sat down in the chair next to Gabriel, "Did we miss anything important?"

Gabriel snickered quietly, "Just, you know, the sun rose without you today." Gabriel got up to pour the two new comers a cup of coffee each, and was rewarded with mumbled thanks from both of them.

Dean watched as the two of them prepared their coffee with alarming amounts of the French vanilla creamer everyone but Dean used (mostly Castiel) and sugar (mostly Sam). "Yeah, the sun rose, and it's almost one p.m. now. I don't imagine anyone will get anything super productive finished today. Is that going to be a problem?" Dean directed the last question at Castiel.

"Why would it be a problem? Maybe we could go explore around the lake today. It seems like it's a nice day outside to do something like that, yes?" Castiel said, sipping his coffee calmly.

Gabriel looked at Dean with a smug I-told-you-so look on his face. Sam was getting up to, apparently, get Castiel and himself some cereal as well. "I think that's a great idea Cas. Dean can grill out tonight, since he managed to get out of cooking last night and that's the only way he knows how to cook anything that isn't out of a can or box."

Dean groaned, dropping his head into his hands, "How was I supposed to know you could burn water? I mean, really? You're never going to let me live this down, are you?"

Sam just grinned serenely at him while Castiel hummed happily as he munched on his cereal. "I have to have something to hold over your head for the rest of your life, Dean. It balances out the fact that you remember all of the embarrassing things I did as a kid."

"I could tell all sorts of stories on you, but Gabe and Cas already know at least half of them. Fine, what exactly do you want grilled?" Dean asked his brother with slightly narrowed eyes and a pout on his lips.

Sam shrugged, "Whatever is fine. I'll make side dishes to go with it. There are all sorts of different types of meat in the fridge, so you pretty much have your pick."

"Alright, alright, enough talk about dinner. We can discuss that more when we get back. We don't have to go exploring too far around the lake today, do we?" Gabriel said, flailing his arms a bit in the direction that the lake was in.

Castiel shrugged, "I suppose not. It is rather a large lake, if I remember correctly. We can just explore the parts of it close by for now. We'll have to get an extra gas can and extra gas to drive all the way around the lake, I would think. We could hike it too, of course. We will just have to see, I suppose. But no, Gabriel, I do not have any high expectations for today. Your delicate sensibilities are safe for now."

Sam actually choked on a drink of coffee at that, and Dean was trying not to laugh, which resorted in a coughing fit. Gabriel rolled his eyes at them, "Really guys? Fine, be that way. See if I care." Gabriel shuffled out of the room huffing, the others falling into quiet laughter. The remaining three of them finished up their breakfast and made their own way out of the kitchen to get ready for the day's excursion.

They met back in the living room about a half hour later, all of them wearing their swim trunks and t-shirts. Castiel had been right; it was a perfect day to go exploring. It wasn't too cool or too hot, just a perfect temperature to go outside and muck about in. Sam and Castiel had bought small back packs for all of them, insisting that any hiking they did would be made easier if they had somewhere to store water and snacks, and small first aid kits, so they had those as well. Sam and Cas had brought bottles of water, small bags of trail mix and jerky, and granola bars into the living room with them, and had them divided up into small piles that could just be tossed into the packs.

"As annoying as it will probably be to carry this damned thing around, it might actually come in handy," Dean said, eyeing his pack as though it might bite him. He was impressed that the two of them had thought of it though, and it couldn't hurt to have first aid kits, since none of them were particularly graceful.

Sam grinned knowingly at him; he knew a compliment from Dean when he heard one. "Alright, is that everything? If we realize we're going to be out of the shade of the trees and in the sun, Cas and I have sun screen too."

Dean shrugged, "Sounds like you have everything covered to me. Are we all ready to go then?"

The others nodded, and the four of them made their way out the door. It was sunny outside, with a smattering of white fluffy clouds across the sky, none of which looked particularly threatening to their day. Gabriel quickly led the way out of the small clearing the cabin was in and towards the woods. There was a foot path that you couldn't really tell was there until you were practically upon it, but it was wide enough for them to make their way along it with two of them standing together, and the other two following behind. Gabriel started out in the front, Sam walking with him, with Dean and Castiel trailing behind them a few feet.

The lake really wasn't more than a ten minute walk from the cabin at a slow pace, as it turned out, and it was rather large to be on private property. The scenery was absolutely beautiful in a picturesque sort of way. Sam decided the image of it could easily be used as a postcard or greeting card. Most of the lake seemed to be surrounded by a small shore line that drifted into woods again, but there were a couple of meadows here and there that seemed to connect to the lake's shore. "Wow," Sam heard Dean mumble from where he had moved up to his other side. He had to agree. He had no idea what he had been expecting, but it wasn't this.

Gabriel looked dubiously at the water, getting closer to the edge of the lake. "I dunno about getting into it just yet. The water looks suspiciously cold, really. Maybe we could save that part of the adventure for tomorrow or something, and just walk a bit around the lake today?"

"Aw, Gabriel, really? Where the hell is your sense of adventure, man?" Dean teased his friend, moving to the water line and crouching down to trail a finger in the water. "Yeah, okay, Gabriel's right. The water is still pretty cold. It's supposed to warm up this week, though, and we're going to be here all summer, so it isn't as if this will be our last chance to take advantage of it."

Sam was tempted to push at least one of them out into the water, but was actually a bit afraid of what the retribution might be for something like that. And here, out in the middle of the mountains, there was no end to the things either one of them could pull on him. Castiel, was making little twitching movements as though he was having similar thoughts, but they caught each other's eyes and shook their heads simultaneously. Over the years it had become easy for him to have these silent conversations with Castiel until it was almost as easy to do it with Cas as it was to do it with Dean.

"Alright, so no swimming today. I'm pretty sure we can all live with that. Which way around the lake should we go?" Sam asked inspecting what lay to either side of where they stood. There didn't seem to be much difference, since mostly all he could see was water and trees. The ground seemed relatively even across the lake, indicating that this part of the land at least was in a sort of flat area of the woods. No matter which way they went they would be going farther from the roads and into territory that probably had never been inhabited by humans.

Gabriel thought about it for a moment, "I glanced at those maps earlier, and from what I could gather, if we go right, it should take us a little farther up the mountain. There are some paths that way, I think. Well, I mean, there are probably path ways on both sides." Gabriel shrugged uncertainly.

Castiel tilted his head slightly to the side, thinking over the options before nodding, "Yes, I think perhaps going right would be best today." Gabriel looked relieved that Castiel was willing to make some of the decisions here, especially since this had all been his idea.

Castiel started moving slowly in the direction indicated, the others trailing behind him. It looked as though they would have to follow around the lake a ways before they would come upon one of the paths that Gabriel had mentioned. They were relatively quiet, mostly just taking in the beauty and calm of their surroundings. Even Gabriel was still besides the motion of walking, his usual fidgeting all but forgotten. It was almost unnerving, really, to see him so calm when he was up and doing things. When they finally did reach another path, they noted that it was much like the path they had taken to the lake. It wide enough for two of them to walk side by side, but almost impossible to see until you were right up on it.

Castiel glanced back at the others as if he was looking for permission, and when no one disagreed, he turned down the path and continued walking. There were all sorts of different types of trees in these woods, most of them rather tall, though they did see the occasional sapling. There wasn't much in the way of dead leaves on the ground, at least not like there would be come autumn. There were just enough to sparsely cover the forest floor, along with the occasional bush and small patches of grass. Though the path they were following was obviously a path, it wasn't a path often taken, and therefore was barely visible as a beaten path at times, and more like an obvious route through the trees.

They must not have been far off from a stream, because the farther they moved along the path, the more they could hear the sound of gently rushing water. They talked quietly about random things, wondering what sort of trees and bushes they were passing by. Sam, who was currently walking next to Castiel, stopped suddenly, tilting his head to the side in a way quite similar to the way Castiel himself often did it. "You guys notice that?" Sam asked curiously.

Dean looked at his brother like he had gone insane for a moment, "Notice what exactly?"

"The deeper we've gone into the woods, the quieter it's gotten," he told them. Sam was right, too. They had been moving steadily deeper into the woods, where the trees didn't grow closer together, but the canopy over top seemed to be farther up and thicker, the trees clearly growing taller here.

Castiel blinked at him, "That is not a normal occurrence?"

"Not really, Cas. Usually we would still at least hear birds, but all you can hear is the stream, and us. Everything else is still, quiet, and it shouldn't be this quiet," Sam's tone was uncertain.

Dean looked thoughtful for a moment, "Sam's right. I doubt there's anything going on, but we should all just pay close attention. There's still plenty of daylight, so it seems silly to just head back, but if things get any weirder we will."

The other three agreed, though Gabriel did so rather reluctantly. Probably because he had seen too many movies where when the woods got quiet people started dying. He grumbled slightly but continued on with the rest of them. Finally he asked, "So what exactly are we looking for anyways? Do we know what signs of dragon inhabitation look like?"

Castiel's brows furrowed slightly as he kept walking, "There isn't much information on it, mostly because people rarely ever find dragons in the places they actually inhabit. Obviously, charred trees or places on the ground would be a likely indication of a dragon with the capability to breathe fire, but not all of them can do so. Larger claw marks in trees might indicate a larger breed of dragon...Caves are thought to be the most likely places for dragon dwellings. There simply still isn't a lot of information on dragons."

"So basically," Dean started, eyes narrowing slightly, "you brought us half way up a mountain and into the middle of the woods with no real idea what we were looking for?"

Castiel ignored Dean's slightly ruffled tone and narrowed eyes and replied in a chipper tone, "Yes, precisely!"

Dean pulled his hand down his face in exasperation while Gabriel laughed out right and Sam snickered quietly. "Remind me why I put up with you people again?" Dean grumbled, kicking the back of Gabriel's shin lightly.

Gabriel batted his eyes at Dean in a vaguely mocking manner, "Why, because you love us of course! And Sam is your brother, so you have to put up with him. And even if you didn't love us, Sam does, so you would still have to put up with us. Either way, you're stuck."

Dean groaned, "I'm starting to see that, thanks."

"You make it sound like we are impossible to deal with," Castiel said from his place directly in front of Dean.

"Sometimes you are. Also, you grumbled in your sleep all night. You didn't snore, but you grumbled. No clue what about, though," Dean said, almost smugly.

Sam waved his hand dismissively, "Cas always grumbles in his sleep. Half the time it's in Latin. I don't even know how he manages it."

"Well, it's official," Gabriel announced, "Castiel is the weirdest of the four of us. Grumbling Latin in his sleep pretty much trumps everything else we could throw out there."

Castiel sighed, "At least I do not snore." Castiel took stock of his surroundings, noticing that the noise from the stream seemed to be louder now, and that the trees were thinning out ahead. "It seems as though we are much closer to the stream now and that there might be a clearing up ahead. We should take a break there, at least."

The rest of them agreed, and soon, as Castiel had surmised, they made their way into a rather spacious clearing. Scattered around the edges of the clearing where piles of rather large rocks that looked to be quite heavy. Castiel frowned slightly as he took in the clearing and the piles of rocks. He could see the stream running along the edge of the clearing to the left, through the piles of rocks. Directly across from them there was a rather large and vaguely flat rock leaning against the side of a part of the mountain that was visibly peaked there. It was as though the clearing simply gave way to a sudden outcropping of rock that went up past the tree tops.

Sam had moved farther into the clearing, turning around in a circle, and then going back to the path to inspect it. "I think we lost the human foot path a while ago and we just didn't notice, because from the clearing, you can't see a path at all, and looking at it now, it doesn't seem much like a real path. Also, am I the only one that thinks those rocks look like they got placed that way?"

Dean moved over to inspect one of the piles of rocks, while Castiel frowned at him. "Dean, perhaps you should not go poking around them just yet. Anything could be using the rocks as a nesting place," Castiel informed him.

Dean simply waved his hand behind him and bent to inspect an opening in the rocks, "I'm actually inclined to agree with you, Sam. These rocks definitely seem like they were placed like this on purpose. Maybe it's to mimic a cave?"

All three of the others moved towards Dean and the pile of stones. Gabriel inspected the stones more closely with Dean, while their brothers hung back a little. "Well shit," Gabriel murmured, "You might actually want to take a look at this Cas."

**A/N - I am horridly sorry for such a long delay on getting this edited and posted. I've had some health issues and general insanity to deal with. Also, originally I had it at 9 chapters, but I'm changing up where I had originally cut off each chapter, so it will be somewhere between 10 and 17 chapters long, but the actual word count isn't changing too much! I hope this was worth the wait, and I promise to get back on track with the regular posting!**


	6. Chapter 6

_Previously:_

_All three of the others moved towards Dean and the pile of stones. Gabriel inspected the stones more closely with Dean, while their brothers hung back a little. "Well shit," Gabriel murmured, "You might actually want to take a look at this Cas."_

Castiel stared at him uncertainly for a moment, trying to ascertain whether they were joking or not. Finally, when neither of them cracked a smile, he moved forward to inspect the opening in the stones as well. If you looked in a certain way, the light was just right in the clearing that you could see the floor of the make shift cave. Castiel's eyes widened as he took in the details. There were shiny stones littered across the ground, and small spots that looked black, almost as if they had been charred. Sam appeared next to him, taking in the same things with a soft gasp.

All four of them jumped in surprise and turned around when they heard a screeching sound from the middle of the clearing. Dean stared in surprise at the tiny creature in the middle of the clearing that was glaring at them ominously. "Is that...?" Dean started, letting the question trail off.

Sam poked Castiel, who had frozen on the spot, in the side, "What sort of dragon is that, Cas?"

"Beag Dragan," Castiel gasped out, his voice laced with awe. Perhaps it wasn't one of the larger dragons, but the creature before them most certainly was a dragon. It was about the size of a large house cat with scales the color of rubies glinting in the sunlight.

Dean blinked, "It's a what now? I'm sorry, but that thing isn't very big."

"Not big Dean, Beag Dragan. It's Gaelic and translates to 'Little Dragon'. Not the most inventive names for dragons, really. But it most certainly is a dragon," Castiel murmured.

"Great," Gabriel grumbled, "So why does it look like it wants to eat us?"

Sam frowned slightly, "I imagine it's a bit upset that we were mucking about in its den." It would make sense for that to be the cause of the small dragon's upset. It stood on its hind legs, pointed little head raised as high as it could go and turned slightly to the left so that it was looking at them clearly with one eye. The eye that they could see, though small, was dark grey in color, with no white to it at all, and a snake like pupil.

"Wait," Dean said, keeping his voice low, "If all of these rock piles are dens...how many of these things are there?"

"I've got another question for you," Gabriel murmured. "If the rock piles belong to these little dragons, what made the rock piles? There's no evidence of humans being here, and it certainly doesn't look big enough to move some of the bigger rocks by itself. Even if there were more of them, how would they hold on to some of those rocks?"

Castiel furrowed his brow. Both Dean and Gabriel made good points. How many of the Beag Dragans were there? Could there be larger dragons living nearby? A larger dragon could certainly have made the dens for the small dragons. Perhaps they should leave the clearing, before either could show up and prove their existence. When Castiel voiced this thought, the others were in agreement.

"I know this is exactly what we were looking for, Cas, but it won't do us any good if they try to kill us," Sam said, backing away from the pile of rocks that was apparently a dragon's den very slowly, the others following suit. When the small dragon lowered itself down to all four legs, they let out a collective sigh.

"I agree, Sam," Castiel murmured, "it would be best for us to go before any of its friends decide to come back."

They continued to back away slowly. Gabriel, who was the furthest in the back, finally turned around so he could make sure there weren't more of the Beag Dragans behind them. "Doesn't look like there are any more of them back here," he told them quietly.

Castiel continued to watch the small dragon as it crept forward carefully the further back they retreated. Once it deemed them a sufficient distance away, the small red dragon moved hurriedly to the den they had investigated, disappearing inside for a moment before sticking its head back out to watch them retreat. When they could no longer see the clearing, or any of the piles of stones, the remaining three turned around to continue walking normally, still checking over their shoulders occasionally.

They were all quiet for some time, seemingly taking in the occurrence that had just taken place. Eventually they made it back to the lake, stopping to rest before finishing the trek back to the cabin. Finally Dean said, "Well, dragons apparently. Looks like you were right, Cas."

Castiel resisted the urge to be smug about it. Instead, he tried for calm certainty when he replied, "Yes, Dean, dragons. It amazes me how you are always surprised when I turn out to be right about these things. Although, I will admit I had absolutely no idea that they would be this close, or that we would find them that quickly."

Gabriel looked out over the lake, thinking for a moment. "So what's the plan? You want to learn about them, right? So how do we get close enough to do that?"

"I don't actually know," Castiel said, shrugging.

"I do," Sam told him, waving his arm slightly. The other three turned to stare at him in surprise. Sam rolled his eyes at them. "Look, everything we know about dragons indicates that they love shiny things, right? The little dragon's den, excuse me, the Beag Dragan's den, was absolutely littered with all sorts of semi-precious stones. There's a rock shop in town. If we bring it...or them...a gift, maybe it won't see us as a threat. Especially if we bring it something new, something it might not be able to find as easily on its own. Most of the stones it had looked warn smooth, so they were probably from the stream or the lake, right? So what about something like amethyst that was still in its natural form?"

The three of them stared at him for a moment as if he had grown a second head. Gabriel shook his head. "That's actually kind of brilliant. What do you think, Cas?" he asked, turning to his brother, "Will it work?"

Castiel nodded slowly, "I think that might work. How late do you suppose that shop is open? It's still fairly early. We've only been gone a couple of hours at most."

Sam shrugged his shoulders slightly, "Most of the shops seemed to be open until five or six in the evening. If we hurry, we can probably make it before they close."

"Well," Dean grumbled, "we ought to get going then, hadn't we? We're wasting time just standing here." Sam and Castiel grinned at each other as Dean and Gabriel took the lead, looking rather excited about the whole thing now that they had seen a dragon for themselves. Sam wondered how early the two of them would be up the next day. The chances of any of them getting a whole lot of sleep seemed suddenly very slim. They might have to start drugging Gabriel and Dean if they wanted to get any rest. Well, at least the two of them were on board with the whole dragon thing now.

The trip back to the cabin was made quickly, and though it was quiet, the excitement in the air was almost tangible. "Just so we're clear," Sam said as they got back to the cabin, making their way inside to get ready to go into town. "I really think we should keep this quiet, right?"

Castiel looked appalled, "Why would we tell anyone? They're our dragons." Castiel sniffed derisively, looking as though the suggestion that any of them would tell someone outside of the four of them was absolutely insane.

Dean snickered, "No one is telling anyone not currently standing in this room, agreed?" Everyone nodded, and Dean continued, "Great, now let's all get presentable enough that we can go to this rock shop so we have something to take back to the dragon, or dragons, bright and early tomorrow!" Gabriel had already headed to his room to change, and now Dean did the same.

Sam and Castiel shared a look. Sam grinned, shaking his head, "They're going to be absolutely impossible now, aren't they?"

Castiel nodded, "Yes, but I think we will find them much more agreeable from here on out. That could definitely be useful. On the downside, I think this might mean we'll be eating more frozen food than we would care for."

"Ah well, I suppose some compromises will have to be made," Sam said as he and Castiel parted ways to change clothes quickly. Five minutes later they were headed out of the door and into the car, trying to make sure they got to the store with plenty of time. They spent much of the car ride speculating how many of the Beag Dragan might actually be living in the clearing.

"If there were at least ten of those dens in just that clearing, how many more might there be just on our property? Or on the whole mountain?" Gabriel said, moving his hands around expressively in his excitement.

"There could be quite a number of them over that much space. We have no way of knowing. Considering everything I have ever heard or read about dragons, it was almost too easy to find one," Castiel pointed out as they pulled up to the shop Sam had mentioned to them. The name of the shop was painted above the doorway, saying simply 'Jasper Ville Rock Shop'.

"They aren't very inventive around here with names, are they?" Gabriel grumbled, slightly put off by the lack of effort in naming things. Almost every small store in town had the word 'jasper' in the title somewhere.

"As long as they have what we're looking for, I don't really care much," Castiel grumbled lowly as they walked into the small store. There were low tables and shelves all over the shop, which was actually much larger than it had originally seemed to be, with two different rooms full of all different sorts of stones in different shapes and sizes. "Yes, I think this should do nicely."

The four of them made their way into the shop, Castiel and Dean breaking off to inspect the second room while Sam and Gabriel stayed in the first. All was going well until Sam heard the one voice he had hoped to manage to avoid for the rest of the trip.

"Hi Sam! Hi Gabriel! What brings you two here? I didn't think I would see you again quite so soon!" Becky exclaimed as she came to a stop just on the other side of the table of stones Sam had been inspecting. The girl looked as insane and slightly mousy as ever, her voice seeming even more annoying than it had seemed the day before.

Gabriel counted back from ten mentally before he answered her, Sam having already moved slightly behind Gabriel, once again attempting to use him as a shield. "Hello Becky, we just thought we would come check out the store. I guess you work here?"

The girl smiled brightly at them, "Yes, I work here! Do you need help finding anything? We have a little bit of everything..." the girl trailed off, eyes zeroing in on Sam, who let out a small frightened noise.

Gabriel smiled back sarcastically at her, "No, I think we're good, but thanks. Our brothers are in the other room, though, you might see if they need help."

Becky nodded enthusiastically, "Sure thing! Just holler if you need anything, Sam!" She flounced into the other room, almost knocking over a set of shelves on her way.

Sam sighed in relief, dropping his head forward onto Gabriel's shoulder, "Good thinking, maybe she'll get attached to Dean and leave me alone."

Gabriel snorted, "Good luck. Normally I might be insulted that she doesn't really acknowledge my presence, even when I'm the one talking, but in her case, I'm actually kind of glad. Completely insane, that one."

"Don't suppose we could feed her to the dragons?" Sam mumbled into his shoulder.

Gabriel chuckled quietly, picking up one of the small stones from the table in front of him. "I guess we could. Dean might have killed her before we ever got that far…and you never know, the poor things could get horrible indigestion from her. Then Castiel would be annoyed, and if Castiel is annoyed Dean will be annoyed, and we won't be any better off."

"Why would Castiel be annoyed, exactly?" Castiel said as he poked his head through the door way that led to the other room. He glanced over his shoulder before turning back to them and moving into the room. "Dean is momentarily containing the girl..."

"Containing?" Sam asked, lifting his head from Gabriel's shoulder to look at his friend a small smile twitching on his lips. "Why is Dean 'containing' her?"

Castiel made a frustrated sound, "She isn't very useful, is she? And she keeps asking stupid questions. We should find what we need and leave, before she tries to invite us all out to dinner, again!"

Sam and Gabriel exchanged a horrified look before beginning their search for dragon appropriate treasures in earnest. "Alright," Gabriel mumbled, "What do dragons like?"

Sam glanced at Gabriel in disbelief, "Shiny things. I thought we'd covered this? Things like amethyst that's still in its natural rough form…Maybe moonstone? That's pretty, and it changes color in light, so they might like that… It doesn't all have to be in the rough form, but we should at least get a few of them like that."

"So any type of quartz would be good, too, right?" Gabriel asked, picking up several quartz points.

Sam grinned at him and Castiel nodded. Five minutes later they had a pile at the counter of several rose quartz, clear quartz, and smoky quartz points. There were also several rough chunks of amethyst. They'd gathered some labradorite, moonstone, sunstone, malachite, and agate as well. It turned out to be perfect timing, because a rather flustered and irritated Dean stomped back into the room with a happily smiling Becky trotting behind him. Dean gave Castiel a withering look as Becky flounced behind the counter.

"Are you sure you guys don't need anything else?" Becky asked them cheerfully, grinning at them.

The rest of them tried not to cringe, but Castiel merely shooed the rest of them out to the car, muttering about how he would handle it.

Dean and Sam hurriedly made their way to the door, Gabriel not far behind. Dean leaned heavily on the car and stared at Sam for a moment. Sam raised his eyebrow and tilted his head to the side slightly, "What?"

"I have a new appreciation for how calmly you handled her yesterday. I thought I was going to have to strangle her to get away. And Cas actually left me in there with her alone!" Dean said, moving his hands about as if he might be trying to explain it further with the appendages.

Sam snorted, "Yes, because hiding behind Gabriel is handling her."

Dean shook his head, "I don't know how one girl can be so annoying. I'm extremely glad I'm not the one she's interested in."

Gabriel's eyebrows vanished into his hair line, "Do you mean to tell us she spent that entire five minutes grilling you about Sam?"

"Pretty much. That doesn't make her any less terrifying though. She spent almost two minutes of it trying to convince me that we should all go to her place for dinner," Dean said with a shudder.

Castiel came out of the store then, carrying two bags full of the stones, "She's quite persistent, isn't she?"

Dean pointed his finger menacingly at Castiel as they got into the car, "You left me in there alone with her!"

"Don't be so dramatic, Dean. Out of the four of us you are best equipped to deal with an insane woman. You handled the situation wonderfully," Castiel informed him as he sat next to him in the front passenger seat that had unofficially become his designated spot.

"I don't even want to know how you decided I was the best equipped for that. I just don't," Dean groaned, shaking his head.

Castiel shrugged, humming as he sorted through the stones in the bag. "So tomorrow we'll take these to the clearing, and hope for the best I suppose. We can leave a few of them in the middle of the clearing if none of the dragons are there. With that many dens, there has to be more than one."

"You would certainly think so. Hopefully the stones will make up for us looking in the den. Maybe they won't be feeling vengeful," Sam mumbled from the back seat.

The rest of the ride back to the cabin was fairly quiet, consisting of only a short argument about what they should do about dinner. Dean and Gabriel won out with putting a couple of the frozen pizzas in the oven.

"It's not like it will kill the two of you to eat junk food occasionally. We even have a supreme one that has pretty much all the food groups," Dean said pointedly.

"I am relatively certain that the grease content in those pizzas will outweigh any healthy parts there might be to them. Besides, we have already agreed, so it is pointless to continue pointing this out. You and Gabriel are in charge of not burning the pizzas," Castiel informed him as he made his way into the study that had officially been dubbed 'Dragon Head Quarters'.

Sam trailed after him, ruffling Gabriel's hair as he walked past, "Just set the timer. You think you two can handle that?"

Gabriel huffed, running a hand through his hair in an attempt to get it to lay flat again. "Yes, we can handle it. Ass."

"For fuck's sake, please quit commenting on his ass! Honestly!" Dean said rolling his eyes.

"I wasn't!" Gabriel exclaimed, going into the kitchen with Dean and turning on the oven. "Just because you have a fascination with people's asses, doesn't mean I do."

They spent the next twenty or so minutes harassing each other and obsessively checking the timer. They both knew that neither one of them would ever hear the end of it if they managed to burn something two days in a row. They had a quiet dinner, and then Gabriel and Dean spent the rest of the night generally annoying their younger brothers. Sam and Castiel spent the evening trying to research the dragons they were going to try and track down again the next day, and didn't particularly appreciate all of the attention.


	7. Chapter 7

Much to Sam's surprise, he was the first one awake, or at least out of his room, the next morning. It was just about eight, which meant that at least it wasn't a completely obscene hour to be awake. If Sam was up, Castiel wasn't likely to be too far behind him. Since he was the first one up, he supposed he could do something nice, and instead of cereal he could actually make breakfast. Once Dean and Gabriel realized there would be real food they would be a lot less upset about being awake early in the morning.

A quick inspection of the contents of the kitchen informed him that he could make pancakes with eggs and bacon, and even fresh strawberries and blueberries to go with the pancakes. That would definitely be considered real food by all four of their standards, which would hopefully keep breakfast a peaceful event.

About half way through Sam making breakfast Gabriel stumbled into the kitchen, making a bee line straight for the coffee pot. Once he had a cup of coffee, he watched what Sam was doing speculatively. "Is that…pancakes?" he asked with a hopeful look in his eyes.

Sam snickered, "Yes Gabriel, pancakes. And there will be bacon and eggs too."

Gabriel smiled brightly at him, sitting down in a chair at the table and looking around curiously, "Is this seriously the second day in a row that I've been awake before my brother?"

"Yeah, I thought for sure that he would make an appearance before you or Dean, but the door hasn't so much as twitched. I figured Dean would start moving once he could smell the food. He usually does," Sam said over his shoulder as he continued to make their breakfast.

Gabriel sipped his coffee, "How long before we cry 'pod person'? I've never seen Cas sleep this much in two days…pretty much ever. Even as a kid he was always a morning person. You think maybe Dean's drugging him so Cas doesn't wake him up at the crack of dawn?"

Sam snorted, "Nah. I don't think it would have ever occurred to Dean to do something like that to Cas. You, yes. Cas, not so much."

Gabriel blinked slowly at Sam's back, and then narrowed his eyes, "Are you implying something there, hm?"

"Not even a little bit," Sam told him, grinning, as he put a plate with a few strips of bacon and two pancakes in front of him. "You'll have to wait a bit on the eggs. I'm just going to scramble some, since it'll be a lot easier."

"This is bribery, but I'll take it," Gabriel said around a mouthful of bacon.

"Hey! How come he gets pancakes first?" Dean grumbled obnoxiously as he came into the room behind Castiel. Both of them were looking decidedly groggy and disheveled. Dean highly doubted that either of their brothers would attribute their disheveled state to anything besides sleeping, which was how he and Castiel had grabbed a few blissfully quiet moments alone. That had been after Castiel had tried to kill him though.

Gabriel and Sam shared a look before snickering quietly, Sam answering Dean, "He got here first. The rest will be finished in a minute, anyways, so it's not like you're actually missing breakfast or anything."

Dean snorted as Gabriel got up to get the two new comers coffee. Dean glared lightly at Gabriel, even as he put a cup of coffee in front of him. "I'm relatively certain that this," Dean gestured to the plate of food in Gabriel's spot, "is clear favoritism. I thought I was your favorite brother?"

"You're my only brother. Also, you're not usually this irritating once you have coffee in front of you," Sam grumbled as he finished making the eggs.

Dean waved his hand, "I'd be less irritating if Cas hadn't decide to fall on top of me when he tried to get up this morning. I damn near had a heart attack."

Castiel frowned at his brother when Gabriel wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at him. "I tripped over one of his shoes. Technically it was Dean's fault."

"It was not! What were you doing leaning over me creepily like that before you tripped anyways?" Dean asked pointing a finger at Castiel.

"I was going to attempt to wake you so we could get on with our day," Castiel informed him over his cup of coffee.

Sam snickered as he placed the plates of food on the table, "Points for technique Cas. You managed to wake him up in a creative manner, whether you meant to or not. Dean gets a point for not screaming like a girl though…So I guess that makes the two of you even."

Gabriel shook his head, "I don't think so. Not if you count in Cas abandoning Dean to Becky at the rock shop yesterday. I think Cas is at least three points above Dean."

"I didn't think about that. Guess Cas does have more points then. Sorry Dean," Sam said completely unapologetically.

Dean grumbled, starting in on his breakfast, "I thought we agreed that every day was pick on Gabriel day, not pick on Dean day. Honestly, you people."

Gabriel pointed his finger accusingly at Dean, "No, you voted that way. Everyone else voted to not even have those sorts of days planned out. Now stop being obnoxious or we'll offer you to the dragons as a virgin sacrifice."

Sam snorted, "I thought virgin sacrifices had to actually be virgins, Gabriel."

"Fine," Gabriel sighed, "But there isn't any reason we have to tell the dragons your brother is a slut."

Castiel choked on his coffee as Dean stabbed a piece of pancake particularly viciously with his fork, before pointing it at Gabriel, "Look here you! I am not a slut! If you're quite done making up things about my sex life, we could all finish breakfast and go see about the dragons. On second thought, maybe we should leave you here. Or we could offer you to the dragons as a sacrifice."

"Don't be ridiculous Dean. Gabriel and I have already decided on who the first sacrifice should be. It ought to be pretty obvious, too," Sam informed him.

Dean's eyes brightened, "The crazy chick?"

Castiel looked doubtful, "I highly doubt the dragons would even want her. Though I suspect that if we do need a virgin sacrifice at any point, she would do…So long as we duct taped her mouth shut."

Sam shook his head, "I honestly can't believe that these are the kinds of conversations we're having at breakfast now. So far we've covered sacrifices to small dragons, whether or not Dean is a slut, and who we pick on during which day."

"You should be happy that your early morning conversations aren't completely boring like most peoples are! They should only be so lucky to have such enthralling topics to discuss over breakfast," Gabriel told him, waving his fork around for emphasis.

Dean sighed, "I'm so glad you find my sex life so enthralling."

"I could have done without hearing anything about that, for the record, thanks," Sam grumbled.

The rest of their breakfast went by rather quickly, with only a handful more of minor threats about feeding each other to the dragons. Then it was only a matter of getting their packs ready again, refilling them with the snacks that had been eaten the day before and a few extras, and the stones getting divvied up between them so they were all a similar weight.

Now that they knew where they were going and had a purpose, the walk, or hike depending on which of them you asked, took a lot less time than it had the first go around. Castiel slowed slightly as they approached the clearing, "Do we actually have a plan if this goes badly?"

Dean blinked at him, "Isn't the plan for when things go badly usually to run and not look back?"

Gabriel groaned from behind them, "If that's the best we can come up with as a backup plan, we need to have a serious discussion about who's in charge of planning this shit from now on. I vote we change the backup plan to tripping Dean so he becomes the pray so we can run."

Dean flipped him off at the same time that Sam elbowed him in the ribs and Castiel turned to glower at him. "Look," Dean said, "I have no idea what crawled up your ass and died this morning, but I'm going to feed you to the freaking dragons if you don't lay off."

Castiel stopped abruptly, throwing his hands up into the air, "That's quite enough! You two need to sort it out, or just get over it or something, whatever it is. Or Sam and I will feed you both to the dragons! Now apologize to each other so we can move on!"

Gabriel and Dean both grumbled out half assed apologies, which seemed to be enough for Castiel at the moment, even if he did give them both a withering look while Sam laughed at their misfortune. The next several minutes as they made their way to the clearing were so quiet every foot step and breath was easily heard. Much like the day before, the noises of the woods got significantly less the closer they got to the clearing.

Upon reaching it, they all let out a collective breath when they weren't immediately attacked by a horde of angry Beag Dragans. Like the day before, there was no immediate sign of their presence in the place, even.

"Alright," Sam said, "We obviously can't put the stones in the dens...do we just...sit around with a couple of them out and see if any of them lurking around eventually get curious?"

Castiel nodded, "I think that would be the best option, at least for now. It certainly seems like the option that will least likely result in our deaths, at any rate."

Gabriel frowned at him, "Just how vicious are these little dragons supposed to be, anyways?"

"They are not known for their aggression, but there is, of course, the chance that a larger dragon is nearby. Larger dragons are thought to be very territorial, but not always vicious if they decide that you aren't actually a threat. I imagine that four of us, depending on the size of the dragon, just sitting around wouldn't seem like much of a threat," Castiel told them, moving towards the center of the clearing and sitting down. The others followed his lead carefully, moving slowly just in case there were any of the little dragons hiding out watching them.

"And we didn't think to bring any sort of weapon to use in our defense because...?" Dean asked, looking rather unsettled.

Sam waved his hand dismissively, "Cas and I discussed it last night, but we thought it might seem threatening. If they think that we're trying to threaten them, they'll just attack, and we'll never get close enough again to learn anything about them. It seemed kind of pointless to bother."

Castiel nodded his agreement, tilting his head as he started to take out some of the stones and lay them on the ground in front of him. The others followed suit, setting out a small variety of stones in small piles in front of each of them. Dean picked up one of the moonstones, turning it over in his hands delicately, "You know, these are actually really pretty."

The rest of them shared a look, before chuckling quietly. Gabriel grinned, "Next time we'll just send you to the rock shop and tell you to just pick out the ones you think are pretty."

Dean frowned at him, "Why me?"

"Never mind that," Sam said, coughing on a laugh softly. When Dean gave him a questioning look, he simply pointed to the den they had been investigating the day before. The other three turned to look curiously; just in time to see what they assumed was the same dragon from the day before climbing out of the den to regard them curiously.

"You know," Gabriel said quietly, "they actually are kind of cute."

Castiel snorted, "You cannot have one as a pet Gabriel."

Gabriel whined at him softly, "That's not fair! I let you keep Dean!" Sam was trying to contain his laughter so as not to scare off the little dragon that was slowly creeping closer to them.

Dean waved one of his hands around a bit, "I'm sorry, you let him keep me? What the hell are you even on? And why aren't you sharing? Also, I am not a pet!"

Sam snickered, "I dunno, Dean. We feed you and clean up after you...that sort of does make you and Gabriel the group pets."

Gabriel pouted at Sam, "I thought we were talking about how Dean was the pet here!"

Castiel grinned, "Both of you technically fit the general criteria for being a pet, so I agree with Sam. If any of us are pets, it is the two of you."

"Well," Gabriel murmured thoughtfully, "I guess as long as I'm Sam's pet."

"Ugh, would the two of you just get a room already?" Dean grumbled.

Dean, who hadn't realized the small dragon had been creeping infinitely closer to him, gave a little shriek when he looked down to put the piece of moonstone he had been playing with back onto his pile. "Holy shit! You shouldn't creep up on people like that!" he told the dragon, who hadn't moved and was only about a foot away from where Dean's hand was halfway to the pile. It just tilted its head to the side curiously as they watched it.

"Well, this proves us right about one thing at least," Gabriel said grinning very much like the Cheshire Cat.

Sam raised his brow at him, "Oh? And what have we been proven right about exactly?"

"It's simple, really," Gabriel said, "Your brother really does scream like a girl."

The dragon finally turned its attention away from them as they laughed quietly, Dean glaring at them slightly, and turned its attention to the pile of stones by Dean. It crept a bit farther forward so that it could reach out with one of its forearms and poke at the pile. It inspected the pile for a moment, before turning to inspect the piles set before the other three of them. Every few seconds it would crane its head up to look at them, but mostly it seemed more interested in the stones as long as no one made any sudden movements.

"Well," Castiel murmured, "It doesn't seem all that inclined to eat us, at least. It just seems curious…sort of like a cat." Castiel watched the dragon with rapt attention, taking mental notes of all of its actions.

"On a scale of one to ten, how likely is it to try and bite me if I try to pet it?" Gabriel asked them as he watched the small creature start to root around in the pile of stones in front of him.

Sam tilted his head to the side slightly, "I'd say five, but we have no way of knowing until someone tries to do it."

Gabriel shrugged, and was just about to reach out when there was a flurry of movement around them. He blinked uncertainly as streaks of red, green, blue, purple, gray, and black moved around the clearing. "Or, you know, not," Gabriel muttered as he jerked his hand close to his chest. "I think I'd rather keep my fingers where they are. Nice and attached. I might need them for something later. I would say that this definitely proves our theory about there being more of the little dragons correct, anyhow. So that's something at least!"

The four of them watched the flurry of color move around the clearing, the small red dragon joining the others for a good five minutes before the group of Beag Dragans settled down. There seemed to be roughly ten of the small dragons, though there was always the possibility of more. Dean frowned down at the small pile of stones in front of him, "I think we underestimated on how many of them to buy...by at least twenty or so..."

Sam snorted, watching the cat sized dragons move in closer to them, though not in a threatening way, "You think?"

"Well, at least you have more than one of them to study, now," Dean told Castiel happily. The red one that they had first seen was making its way back to Dean now, a blue one trailing behind it. Dean furrowed his brow, studying how the small dragons were grouped, "Do you think they're grouping like that because they're families, or mates, or something? Or is it just random?"

"Hm," Castiel was quiet for a moment, studying, like Dean had, the way the dragons were grouped. "A group of dragons is usually referred to as a 'clan'. The reason for that is that dragons are usually considered to be sentient beings, even the smaller ones. Usually, if a dragon is part of a clan it has less to do with familial ties and more to do with wanting to be a part of that clan. I suppose the dragons would consider the four of us a clan, despite the familial ties, because we choose to be together, and are not together by force. All of the books agree that once a dragon leaves its clutch, it chooses a clan, whether there is family there or not. As for mates, nothing so far that I've read agrees about mating cycles, or patterns, or even whether they mate for life." Castiel shrugged, there was still a lot unknown about dragons, and he really hoped that now he would have the chance to see even a little bit of it.

Gabriel hummed as he watched the two dragons that had decided to come up to him look curiously between him and the pile of stones. One of the dragons was a forest green color, and the other deep purple. "I still think they're adorable. I like them even better since they still haven't tried to kill us. Or bite us. I do like all of my appendages where they are."

Sam grinned over at Gabriel, "They actually seem rather fond of watching us. They don't seem to be put off by the stones either." He frowned then, "Maybe they haven't done more than poke at them because they think it's part of our own, what do you call it, hoard?" The three dragons that had gathered close to Sam watched him raptly as he spoke, looking almost as if they understood. The sunlight glinted lightly off their scales. There was a gray dragon, his coloring unlike any of the others, and one each of the green and purple sort that had gone to Gabriel. Dean had collected a deep royal blue dragon along with the red as well.

Castiel had attracted a black dragon, along with a red one, and a blue one like Dean had. "They certainly are a colorful bunch," he murmured. "You might be right, though, Sam. Perhaps if we offer them some of the stones?" Castiel picked up one of the amethyst and held it out slightly to the three dragons, waiting to see what they might do with such an invitation. The little black dragon crept forward a little bit more, tilting its head to the side, then reaching out with one of its small clawed forearms to touch the amethyst Castiel was holding out lightly. When Castiel didn't make a move to take the stone back, the dragon picked it up carefully, watching Castiel's face, and then scrambled back about a foot to the other dragons to inspect the stone. It turned the light purple stone over and over in its claws, examining the way the sun hit it and making a happy chattering noise. The other two dragons watched it excitedly, attracting attention from the rest of the clan, though none of the other dragons moved forward to get a closer look.

The others followed Castiel's example, and soon all ten of the Beag Dragans that had gathered around them had their own new stone to examine. It didn't take long for them to start skittering off to deposit them in their dens though, but they didn't stay away for longer than a couple of minutes. "Funny little things, aren't they?" Gabriel said, watching as the little green one that he'd given a chunk labradorite to half glided and half walked to its den.

"They do seem to be rather a lot like cats in their body language and personalities," Castiel commented, watching as the dragons fluttered around the clearing for several moments before settling back around the four of them again. Oddly enough, the dragons moved back to the same spots they had previously occupied next to the same person they had first gone to.

"Do you think they get attached that quickly?" Sam asked as he watched the three dragons that seemed to have chosen him creep steadily closer to him.

Castiel shrugged, but Dean said, "It kind of looks that way, doesn't it? I mean, they aren't going to other people now. Maybe it's because we gave them the stones?"

"That would indicate a sort of bond or something wouldn't it?" Gabriel questioned, holding his hand out to his two small dragons.

"Well, it's certainly possible," Castiel said, watching as the green dragon moved forward to wrap its claws gently around one of Gabriel's fingers. "Since they're assumed to be sentient creatures, it would stand to reason that such bonds and attachments are possible, even probable. I doubt these particular dragons have met many humans, if any at all. They seem to be rather young."

As if the small green dragon had given some sort of signal by touching Gabriel directly, the other dragons flurried into motion again, this time moving towards the four humans. Gabriel snorted as the tiny purple dragon climbed into his lap and put its forearms against his chest so it could be face to face with him. "Can I help you? Is there a reason we need to be face to face here?" The dragon's response was to murr at him, butting its nose against Gabriel's cheek.

Dean snickered as his own dragons tried to climb up onto his shoulders, "Well, at least they're affectionate. They could be trying to bite or scratch us up, but they just seem to want to climb..."

"Speak for yourself," Sam grumbled at him, "One of them has gotten tangled in my hair." The purple dragon had been content to curl around his hand and arm, and the green one had climbed happily into his lap, but the little gray dragon had climbed right up to his shoulders and started playing with his hair.

Dean snorted at him, "I've told you like ten times that you need a haircut. But do you ever listen to me? No, of course not. This is where I get to tell you I told you so. So, I told you so."

Gabriel half glared at Dean, "He absolutely does not need to cut his hair. You're just jealous because his hair is prettier than yours."

Castiel, however, was fairing similarly to Sam, as the small black dragon had apparently taken its cue from the gray dragon. "I do not see how it would make any difference. The dragons seem quite capable of getting tangled in shorter hair as well." The blue and red dragons were both curled in his lap, content to simply watch the mild chaos around them.

"Do you see Dean? You wouldn't want Cas to get all of his hair cut off, would you? Hm?" Gabriel taunted him; grinning slightly as Dean did nothing more but narrow his eyes and grumble.

"Ouch," Sam groaned as the gray dragon seemed to tug on his hair, "Do you think that maybe you could not pull on the hair? It's sort of attached, and I would like to keep it that way, you know." Sam turned his head slightly, trying to get a look at what the little gray dragon was doing. It craned its head around so it could look back at Sam, giving him what Sam assumed was the equivalent of puppy eyes. Sam sighed, and then moved slightly to grab a random stone from his pile and hand it to the dragon currently trying to pull his hair out. The dragon's eyes got big, and it disentangled one of its forearms to take the sunstone from him, making another chittering sound in his ear.

Gabriel snickered, "Bribery, huh Sam? Actually, I think bringing them the stones was kind of a genius move. They seem pretty enthralled with them."

Sam shrugged, "It just made sense." He winced slightly as the gray dragon let go of his hair completely, twining itself around his neck and making a low grumbling sound in its throat that seemed a lot like a contented cat purring.

"I'm not certain they will be very happy when we have to leave to go back to the cabin later. Perhaps we should leave early enough to send Dean back to the rock shop this evening," Castiel said thoughtfully.

Sam grinned evilly at Dean, "While you're there, you should get a big chunk of quartz or something to put in the middle of the clearing. I think they might like that. Just remember to pick out the ones you think are pretty, Dean."

"I still don't understand why I have to be the one to do it! What if I end up killing that crazy chick? Then what will we do?" Dean asked them, glaring slightly at the three of them who seemed to find it rather amusing.

Sam grinned at him again, "We'll feed her remains to the dragons. Besides, if I go, you're likely to never see me again. She'd probably kidnap me and keep me drugged in her basement or something. Gabriel's temper is too short, and Castiel has no patience for stupidity. So that leaves you."

Dean rolled his eyes, but conceded. Gabriel was currently playing with his small green dragon's tail, not that the dragon seemed to mind. "They're awfully warm, aren't they? Shouldn't they, I dunno, be cooler or something?"

Castiel blinked at him before reaching a finger out to pet along the scales along the dragons backs. "If you're only looking at it from a reptilian point of view, but they say aside from scales and some characteristics, dragons aren't very much like reptilians in some ways. They've been documented as warm blooded creatures, not cold. Plus, you would think anything reported to be able to breathe flames would have a higher body temperature."

"I didn't know the small ones could breathe fire," Dean said, inspecting the dragons that had curled in his lap.

"No one knows for sure if they can or not," Sam told him, "Though there have been a couple of reports from people that have seen Beag Dragans that they can, though not much, and not for very long."

"So that's another thing we can add to the list of shit we don't know about them. I'm beginning to see why you were so interested in tracking them down, though," Dean said to Castiel.

They spent the next several hours there in the clearing, enjoying their time with the Beag Dragans, and even sharing some of their food with them. The dragons seemed to like some of the food, but were still more interested in the stones. They divvied up the remaining stones before they left, and then had to wait to leave the clearing an extra ten minutes so Gabriel could try and explain to the small dragons that they would be back the next day. The small dragons still made odd keening noises and followed them to the edge of the clearing, watching them go.

"Does anyone else feel like crap for just leaving them there?" Sam asked his friends as they made their way down to the lake.

Dean groaned at him, "Not you too. What is it with you and Gabriel? We cannot keep them as pets!"

"I never said that! They just made me feel bad...that horrible whining noise..." Sam trailed off.

Castiel sighed, "It is not as though we could have stayed in the clearing with them, Sam. Nor could we have brought them back to the cabin with us. That would have been a disaster waiting to happen."


	8. Chapter 8

The rest of the trip back to the cabin consisted of mild planning for Dean to go to the rock shop that afternoon. They decided that sandwiches would be easiest for a late lunch/afternoon snack, and Sam and Gabriel agreed to make them while Castiel and Dean documented the goings on at the clearing earlier. Sam and Gabriel shared a look as Dean and Castiel disappeared towards the study, or, as Castiel was now fond of calling it, Dragon Head Quarters.

"Why do I get the feeling we're missing something there?" Sam asked Gabriel as he started pulling things for the sandwiches out from the fridge.

Gabriel shrugged as he got out the bread, "Probably because we are. Those two are terribly sneaky when they want to be." He frowned, they did seem to be spending even more time together, especially the last two or three months. "You don't think they've secretly been dating, do you?"

Sam stared at him for a moment as though that thought had never occurred to him. "I wouldn't have thought of it, to be honest. It would explain the amount of time they've been spending together...and why they didn't complain about sharing a room. It would also explain how Dean still manages to mess up Cas's research and survive to tell about it."

Gabriel's hand twitched as he was putting together a sandwich and the two of them shared another look. They quickly finished the sandwiches and set the table in record time before rushing through the living room. They slowed down as they neared the study, Sam walking behind Gabriel, both of them sticking close to the wall. "Does that sound suspiciously quiet to you?" Gabriel whispered to Sam, who simply responded by nodding his head, his eyes wide.

When the two of them finally peaked around the edge of the door, Gabriel couldn't decide whether to laugh, stare in shock, or run while screaming about his sanity. Apparently they hadn't been wrong to be suspicious as Dean and Castiel were rather wrapped around each other. Castiel was perched on the edge of the desk, arms and legs both wrapped securely around Dean as they made out.

"Well," Sam mumbled, "I'm suddenly not all that hungry anymore."

Gabriel cringed slightly, "No kidding." He cleared his throat rather loudly, watching in immense satisfaction as Dean and Castiel both startled at the noise, banging their heads together. "Do we even want to know what's going on here?"

Dean and Castiel had both turned to face them now, watching the two of them nervously. Dean coughed slightly, "Well, see...we can explain. Cas, you explain."

Castiel blinked owlishly at them, elbowing Dean in the side rather roughly, "Dean and I are in a relationship."

"And we weren't informed of this because...?" Sam asked curiously.

Castiel rolled his eyes, "Dean wished to wait for an appropriate time to inform you of the development. I had assumed that the two of you would have figured it out by now."

"Actually," Dean muttered, "We sort of figured that by the time we had to tell you, the two of you would have already been together."

Gabriel groaned, pulling his hand down his face, "Right then, well, lunch is ready...for those of us that can still eat."

Sam made a vague gagging noise as he made his way back to the kitchen, Gabriel following him quietly. Dean and Castiel came into the room a few minutes later, quietly arguing about something as they sat down. Gabriel narrowed his eyes slightly at them, pointing his sandwich at them threateningly, "No playing footsie under the table you two! I mean it!"

Dean rolled his eyes at Gabriel, "Calm down, no one is playing footsie...right now."

"Let's just keep it that way," Sam grumbled. He loved his brother, and he loved Castiel, but he didn't want to be witness, or accidentally get involved, in a footsie match. His gag reflex was only so good, anyways. Though, he'd wondered when his brother would finally stop making eyes at Castiel and finally get together with him. "How long have the two of you been hiding this relationship, anyways?"

Dean choked slightly on the bite of his sandwich he'd just taken. "Oh, you know, a month or two," he responded after he had swallowed the food.

Gabriel glanced at Sam, "Told you." Sam rolled his eyes, and the rest of lunch was awkwardly quiet, as though no one was quite sure how to act.

After lunch Castiel went back to the study to actually write the notes about the things that had happened in the clearing, while Dean helped Gabriel clean up the kitchen and Sam annoyed Castiel. "Two months, and it didn't occur to you that I might want to know? Or that Gabe might want to know?" Sam asked him curiously.

Castiel heaved a sigh, "I did try to tell Dean that you would be more upset the longer we withheld the information, but he seemed to think given enough time the two of you would figure it out for yourselves. We were rather obvious, sometimes. I suspect now that you and Gabriel spent more time paying attention to each other than you did to Dean and me." Castiel's eyes twinkled and his small smile was knowing while he watched Sam fiddle with a paper on the desk.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sam grumbled.

Dean and Gabriel were having a very similar conversation in the kitchen. "What do you mean you weren't exactly being subtle?" Gabriel snapped, half glaring at Dean.

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Dude, we didn't even close the door to the study!" he told Gabriel pointedly.

Gabriel threw his hands into the air, "I still don't understand why you didn't just tell us!"

"I seriously thought that at least one of you would have figured it out by now. And neither of you would have kept it a secret for very long," Dean told him.

"What were Sam and I so distracted by that we didn't notice the two of you apparently being blatantly obvious anyways?" Gabriel grumbled as he finished wiping off the counters.

Dean snickered, "Oh, I don't know, each other maybe?" When Gabriel only glared at him, Dean made a tutting noise. "Come on. It's a miracle, and not a good one, that neither of you has noticed enough to make a move. You're so busy watching Sam, which is kind of creepy by the way, that you don't even notice Sam watching you. Which is also creepy. I thought Cas and I were bad, but the two of you take it to a whole other level."

"We do not! Also, I think you might be mildly insane. That would explain why you manage Becky so well," Gabriel told him, holding onto his last bits of denial while glaring at him.

Dean rolled his eyes, "The two of you can't stay in denial about this forever, you know. And you do so. Castiel told me that the notebook you get so touchy over is completely full of supposed 'doodles' of Sam. Which apparently aren't actually doodles, but pretty good drawings from what Cas says. And I know you have Sam's favorite hoodie. You wear it all the time!"

Gabriel rubbed the back of his neck nervously, "Okay, so maybe I have his favorite hoodie. And I like to draw, and Sam just sits still longer than you do."

Dean watched Gabriel for a minute, "You're really going to make this difficult aren't you?" When all Gabriel did was blink at him, Dean grabbed his wrist and proceeded to drag Gabriel out to the hallway, yelling, "Plan C Cas!"

Gabriel stared at Dean in shock as he was pushed into a closet, Sam quickly thrust in beside him. "What the fuck is Plan C and why are we in a closet?" Gabriel said as Dean quickly closed the closet door and turned the lock. "Did you just lock us in here?"

"This," Dean's slightly muffled voice came through the door, "Is Plan C. C is for closet, in case you were wondering. We developed it a while ago, but we were sort of hoping not to have to use it. You didn't really leave us a choice. Sam, you might want to ask Gabriel about where you lost your favorite hoodie...and about why Cas suggested the sketchbook too!"

Gabriel grumbled, banging lightly on the closet door, "Traitor! You're going to have to let us out eventually you know!"

"Of course we will," Castiel told him, his voiced laced with amusement, "We'll be back to check on you in a half an hour or so."

"Well," Sam said as they listened to Castiel and Dean retreat from the hallway, "I guess that's one way for them to get alone time. What did he mean about my hoodie, anyways?"

Gabriel coughed slightly, rubbing the back of his neck again, though Sam couldn't see him in the dark of the closet. At least they hadn't shoved them in the linen closet, which was infinitely smaller than the coat closet that they had been crammed into. "See, about that. You didn't actually lose it. You just left it mine and Dean's room, and I sort of, I dunno, kept it I suppose."

Sam blinked into the darkness, "You've just...had the hoodie I've been looking for this past month, and you didn't think to mention it?"

Gabriel scoffed, "Well it's not like I wanted to give it back!"

"You're a hoodie thief!" Sam accused, poking Gabriel in what he assumed was his friend's arm.

Gabriel poked him back, "It's not my fault you just left it lying there! Besides, it's a comfortable hoodie, and you have like twenty more!"

"I do not!" Sam paused for a moment before asking, "So why did Cas want me to get you a sketchbook?"

Gabriel groaned, "Really? Fine. The notebook I freaked out about Cas having is kind of full of sketches...just doodles really."

"Right," Sam said, poking Gabriel again, "because Dean would think it was that important that I know you doodle. Besides, Cas said they were pretty good. So what exactly were you 'doodling' in that notebook that I don't get to know about but everyone else does?"

"Stop poking me, damn it!" Gabriel grumbled, grabbing Sam's hand so he would have to use his other hand if he wanted to poke him that badly. "And it isn't important."

Sam sighed, "If it isn't important, why can't you just tell me?"

"Because it was you, okay?" Gabriel sighed heavily, "I managed to fill an entire notebook with sketches of you. Happy now?"

Sam grinned broadly, though Gabriel couldn't see him, and tugged on Gabriel's hand so that he was forced to turn towards Sam, "Actually, yeah, I think I am." With that Sam tugged Gabriel forwards again until he bumped into Sam. Sam used his other hand to catch the back of Gabriel's neck, bringing him closer and closing the distance at the same time so that he could kiss Gabriel.

Gabriel was absolutely going to ask Sam what he was talking about…just as soon as Sam stopped kissing him senseless. Actually, as long as Sam didn't stop kissing him, he would be okay not knowing what the hell he was talking about. They'd probably spent a good five minutes like that when they heard shuffling outside the door and murmuring voices.

"It's awfully quiet in there, isn't it?" they could hear Castiel say, "Shouldn't they be making some sort of noise?" Gabriel snorted into Sam's neck, where he'd nuzzled his face.

Dean was a bit more quiet, but still speaking loud enough that they could hear him when he said, "You don't think they've killed each other, do you?"

Sam muffled his laughter against Gabriel's hair as there was a sort of flurry of motion outside the closet door. The door was yanked open, revealing Dean and Castiel whose faces quickly went from worried to smug. Gabriel rolled his eyes, grabbing Sam's hand and pulling him along as he pushed past their brothers, "Problem you two?"

Dean grinned, "No problem. Is this the part where I get to tell you that I told you so?"

"You just did. Aren't you supposed to be making a trip to visit the crazy lady?" Gabriel reminded Dean sweetly.

Dean groaned, looking annoyed, "Yeah, yeah. Cas is going to come with me, just in case she tries to pull something insane… Somehow I think there might be safety in numbers when dealing with her particular brand of crazy." It didn't take the two of them long to leave after that, though Dean might have continued to tell them "I told you so" right up until they were out the door.

Castiel just kept smiling knowingly and mischievously at them, leaving them with some parting advice, "Don't do anything you don't want Dean to walk in on. We'll be back in about an hour."

Sam made a face as Castiel closed the door behind him, "That was mildly disturbing. We don't have to actually tell anyone else that we ended up together because the two insane asylum escapees locked us in a closet, right?"

"I will personally beat the crap out of your brother is he so much as hints at it to anyone else," Gabriel told Sam as they cuddled up on the couch together to enjoy the quiet. It was nice, Gabriel quickly decided, to just be able to be that close to Sam without it being awkward. It was certainly something he had never thought he might get a real chance at. Even if their brothers had been completely evil and maybe a bit wrong to shut them in a closet of all places, at least it had made them work out that they did want each other. It was even better that they hadn't had to use so many words.

Of course, Castiel and Dean were celebrating a plan well executed. "I thought one of them might at least put up a bit more of a fight going into the closet, at least," Dean told Castiel as he drove them into town. Dean had assumed that it would take them much longer to work out whatever issues they had, too, but they hadn't even been in the damned closet for a half an hour before they'd been let out. Apparently that had been long enough, though. He was just happy they were at least some version of together, and that they hadn't actually managed to kill each other.

Castiel merely shrugged at him, "I highly doubt they will let this go without some sort of vengeance." They pulled up to the rock shop a few minutes later, and Castiel sighed heavily as they got out of the car, "Let's just try and get this over with without any altercations."

Dean snorted, "I make no promises to behave. I'll try, but there's only so much crazy I can take these days, and she sort of steps on every last nerve I have." The girl really did wear on him, and he hadn't had to deal with her for very long. He couldn't imagine what it would be like if he had to spend any real time with her.

Castiel just shook his head as he followed Dean into the store, silently hoping that this wouldn't turn out to be a huge fiasco. He was surprised to notice that they weren't the only patrons in the store, as it had been deserted the day before. Not surprising, really. Becky could probably scare off almost anyone. Becky waved to them as she talked to the woman tall brunette woman that was leaning against the counter slightly.

"Well," the woman continued, "If you hear any more about dragon sightings in the area, do give me a call, won't you?"

"Of course Ms. Talbot! Sure thing!" Becky told the woman enthusiastically. The woman, apparently one Ms. Talbot, nodded at them on her way out of the door. Dean raised his eyebrow in question at Castiel, but Castiel only furrowed his own brow and frowned.

Once Ms. Talbot's car had pulled away, Castiel turned from the stones he had been looking at and made his way to Becky. "Becky, who was that woman?"

Becky looked up from the business card she was holding, seemingly startled, "Oh! She said her name was Bela Talbot. She wanted to know about the dragon sightings that people have been reporting in the mountains. I tried to tell her that pretty much all of the real sightings have been happening on the other side of the mountain range. She just insisted that I let her know if I heard of anything closer to here."

"I see," Castiel replied, his frown deepening, "Did she tell you why she was interested in them?"

Becky shrugged, "Not really. But to be honest, she was actually pretty creepy. Anyways, I didn't think I would see you guys back here so soon. Do you need any help?"

Dean came up beside Castiel then, placing a rather large hunk of clear quartz on the counter. "I don't think so. We'll want that one, and I'll just be a minute picking out the other ones."

Becky's eyebrows rose, "Starting quite a collection, are we?"

"We have decided to take it on as a sort of hobby, yes," Castiel told her. It wasn't as though he was going to tell her the truth. He wasn't certain that would go over well, in any case, and especially not if she decided to call Bela Talbot.

Becky simply started wrapping up the quartz, chattering about some sort of town gossip that was going around. True to his word, Dean only took a few more minutes to pick out the rest of the stones. They managed to make it out of the store relatively quickly without Sam there. As they got back into the car Dean gave Castiel an odd look. "Are you going to tell me why you've been frowning so hard?"

Castiel heaved a sigh, "I need to check my notes to be sure, but I believe I have heard of the Talbots before, and it is not good news."

"This is not good news in what way exactly?" Dean asked him, confusion written all over his face as he navigated the mountain roads.

Castiel hesitated a moment, "If I'm correct, the whole family business is a sort of...supernatural bounty hunt. In a bad way. But, like I said, I will have to check my notes to see if I'm right."

"Great," Dean grumbled, "Like one crazy chick wasn't enough."

Castiel hummed his agreement thoughtfully. When they arrived back at the cabin it was to find Gabriel and Sam curled on the couch, watching what appeared to be a werewolf movie. Dean huffed in an irritated manner, "Shouldn't you be doing something productive?"

Gabriel smiled innocently at him, "And deprive you and Cas of doing all the productive shit? Besides, technically, this is still my summer vacation, which is basically the polar opposite of productive."

"How was it?" Sam asked as he ran his fingers gently through Gabriel's hair repeatedly.

Dean rolled his eyes, "Becky didn't ask about you, really, thank god. Though there was this creepy chick in there when we got there...Cas thinks she's bad news and he's already looking through his notes to be sure she is who he thinks she is. Also, if the two of you get any more adorable, I'll lock you back in the closet just so I don't have to see this anymore."

Gabriel snorted, but didn't have a chance to reply aside from flipping him off before Castiel returned to the room looking grim. "Bela Talbot is a relation to the Talbots I was worried she might be related to," he told them morosely.

Sam stared at him uncertainly while Gabriel blinked oddly at his brother before he responded, "What does that mean, exactly?"

"The Talbots are sort of supernatural bounty hunters, I suppose. They find all different types of rare magical objects, even creatures, and sell them to the highest bidder. It's been their family business for a long time," Castiel told them.

"So what the hell is one of them doing here?" Sam asked. He would pretty much prefer to stay as far away from them as he could. They didn't sound like the nicest people.

Dean pulled his hand down his face warily, "The dragons. They heard about the dragon sightings."

Castiel nodded, "I believe so."

Gabriel raised an eyebrow at him, "They're going to try and sell dragons?"

"Not exactly, no. I've come across the Talbot name before, and they're actually famous for a couple of specific item types. Their dragon items haven't been available for at least a hundred years, but they used to be quite famous for dragon hide merchandise and selling dragon blood and hearts."

Gabriel stared at him, a look of horror on his face. He swallowed slowly, "Does she know that there are dragons here?"

Dean shook his head, "Not for certain. At least she didn't seem like she knew for sure. I don't think Becky would tell her even if she did have an inkling, which I highly doubt, to be honest."

Sam let out the breath he hadn't noticed he was holding. "So we just have to be twice as careful, and pray to every god and goddess ever known that she doesn't find out there really are dragons here." That, at least, was something they could certainly all agree on. It wasn't like they were running around with signs saying that they were harboring dragons or anything, and technically, the dragons had probably been in the mountain range long before the humans had come to play.

"So, what?" Dean grumbled, "We just run around pretending like some creepy ass chick isn't out there right now looking for dragons to kill to sell off their parts?"

Castiel shook his head, "No, we keep our eyes and ears open, and hope she decides the rumors are false. Other than that, right now there isn't anything else we can do. Even if we had proof, there simply are not any laws that would protect a dragon right now. There might never be. So we watch over the dragons we know are here, and be very quiet about anything supernatural related when we go into town."

"So basically we just need to pretend to be normal college kids spending the summer in a secluded cabin," Gabriel said, shrugging his shoulders.

Sam blinked down at him, "Do we even know how to do that? I mean normal? Do we actually know how to be normal of all things?"

"Not even a little bit, Sammy," Dean told him with a snort. It was true, at least Dean thought so. They could be weird and crazy, even all sorts of complicated, but normal wasn't really their style. That required some sort of understanding of how normal college students acted, and considering that they didn't have many friends outside of the four of them, that was sort of a stretch. Dean certainly couldn't claim any understanding of it, unless you counted knowing that constantly being drunk and going to parties was some people's idea of normal college behavior.

Castiel rolled his eyes at them, "Normal for us, then, since we clearly lack the capabilities to duplicate a social norm none of us are actually all that aware of. Unless most college students spend time with only three other people consistently and call having pizza outside of the dorm rooms social interaction."

"Great," Gabriel said, sitting up slightly from where he had been slumped rather comfortably against Sam's chest, "So now that we have officially established that we're freaks, can we get back to watching this absolutely pointless movie?"

"What are you watching, anyways? I mean, I could see that it was about werewolves when we came in, but I don't recognize it," Dean said as he sat down on the part of the 'L' shaped sectional (completely ignoring the uncomfortable looking arm chair that was next to the couch) that wasn't already being taken up by his brother and Gabriel.

Sam shrugged nonchalantly, "It's some B-rated werewolf flick we found in with the dvds. I'd never even seen the case before. It's not too bad for what it is."


	9. Chapter 9

A week later saw them in the clearing, just as they had been for every day since their first trip to the spot. The large quartz crystal they had purchased now resided in the middle of the clearing, catching the sun and making the dragons quite happy. They spent more time at the clearing, often taking picnic lunches, than they did at the cabin now. They followed a routine of getting up relatively early, having breakfast, packing lunch most days, and heading to the clearing. When they came back from the clearing, they had dinner, cleaned up, and usually watched some sort of movie.

They had found that the Beag Dragans were quite intelligent, quickly learning what certain words meant. They understood words like 'food', 'stay', and even 'fly' quite easily. They had also become familiar with Gabriel, Dean, Sam, and Castiel's names, though the guys didn't have names to call the dragons themselves. They had agreed that naming them like pets seemed odd. It turned out that it didn't matter too much, because they almost always had the small dragons' rapt attention.

Today Gabriel had taken on what was currently looking like a rather impossible venture of teaching the small creatures to dance. This might have gone better if the creatures were used to standing on only their hind legs. A few of the dragons had completely ignored Gabriel's attempt to include them. The black dragon that favored Castiel was fond of ignoring Gabriel most of the time, and this particular time didn't seem to be an exception. Then there was the blue dragon that favored Dean, as well as the gray dragon that ignored anyone but Sam, also watched the ongoing endeavor with apparent amusement.

Gabriel was currently trying to teach the dragons some form of dancing that didn't even look like any sort of dancing Sam knew. Sam watched him exasperatedly, "You know they're never going to be able to do whatever it is you're trying to teach them how to do, right?"

The little dragons continued moving around in an attempt to duplicate whatever it was that Gabriel was actually trying to teach them, which really just resembled flapping his arms while he moved his feet around. Gabriel glowered over at Sam, turning his attention back to the small dragons when Dean yelped. Gabriel turned just in time to see the small green dragon that adored Gabriel trample Dean's foot and shoot a small flame out of its mouth at the same time, singeing Dean's calf which was exposed by the board shorts he was wearing.

Dean started cussing Gabriel out immediately while Castiel examined his leg quietly for a moment, before telling him, "It does not appear to have done any actual damage Dean. The hairs on your leg have just been singed off. You can quite yelling at Gabriel now."

Gabriel tried to look absolutely innocent while Dean narrowed his eyes at him, "This is your fault! Why on earth are you even trying to teach them how to dance anyways? It's not like it's a skill they actually need, or one that you possess."

Sam rolled his eyes as Gabriel snorted. Sam waved a hand in the air to get their attention, "That all seriously lacks in comparison to the fact that we now know that they can, indeed, actually breathe fire."

Castiel paused in his examination of Dean's leg to turn his attention studiously to the small dragon. He looked as though he was about to say something, but a sudden whooshing noise in the sky above the clearing startled them all and drew their attention upwards. "Shit," Dean mumbled, staring with a mixture of awe, uncertainty, and slight fear at what he was seeing. A much larger dragon was flying low over the trees, heading straight towards the clearing they were in. The little dragons started chattering excitedly, a few of them even flying up a little ways to meet the dragon.

"Do we run screaming now, or wait for it to try and eat us?" Gabriel asked uncertainly, watching as the large dragon got closer with every passing second.

Castiel shushed him, "I highly doubt it would matter if we ran or not. I strongly suspect it could kill us quite quickly without much fuss."

"So we just stay here and hope for the best," Dean mumbled as the large dragon's wing beats became louder for just a moment before the noise tapered off and the dragon landed in the clearing, close to the part of the mountain that shifted up and the large flat rock that was leaned against it. Its gold scales glittered in the sun, its under belly slowly changing to a sort of cream color. It looked almost exactly like the Beag Dragans, just much larger, with liquid gold seeming eyes instead of the black or gray eyes the other dragons had. And, of course, it had much larger teeth.

It tilted its head to the side curiously, regarding them but making no move towards them. The small dragons were swarmed around it, chattering at it insistently, one of them gliding back over to the group of humans occasionally. It finally moved several steps closer to them, keeping perhaps six feet of distance in between them. It leaned its head forward, sniffing at them slightly before tilting its head again. It nodded its head once, as though it was perhaps coming to a decision, and sat back on its haunches.

"Well, I suppose you'll do." The words echoed clearly in their minds, causing Dean to shriek again, flail, and fall back on his ass. Gabriel was somewhere between running and absolute confusion, while both Castiel and Sam merely looked awed. "I guess," Sam stated, "that that answers the question on the intelligence of dragons."

"Wait, wait!" Gabriel flailed, "You mean to tell me that it was the dragon talking?"

The dragon snorted, seemingly amused. "Of course I can speak, in a manner of sorts," the dragon informed them in the same manner. The small dragons started chattering excitedly again, gliding around the humans they preferred. "You've kept the small ones out of trouble, and for that I am grateful. I am McKay. What are your names?" There was an inquisitive tone to the voice now.

Castiel hesitated only a moment before introducing the four of them while Gabriel helped Dean back to his feet while he eyed the dragon uncertainly. Mostly Dean was just freaked out by the whole apparent telepathy thing, but it was kind of cool, he supposed. Dean blinked uncertainly at the large dragon, which was easily bigger than Gabriel's car, "Do the small dragons have names too? What sort of dragon are you?" Dean, they had quickly discovered, was actually rather interested in dragons now that he had firsthand experience with them. He'd grown rather fond of the two that followed him around the clearing like little ducklings.

McKay seemed rather curious about them, but seemed prepared to answer questions, for the time being at least. "I am one of the Dormientes Draco, the sleeping dragons. We are not so many as we once were." McKay paused to look at him oddly, "Of course they have names. The red one that seems fond of you, Dean, is named Rey, and the blue one is Evania. The green one that follows Sam is Keir, the purple is Edan, and the gray is Nyla. The black that is fond of Castiel is Bran, the blue is Eavan, and the red is Aidyn. The green that is attached to Gabriel is Orin and the purple is Brie. They are quite young yet for dragons, even of their kind, and are not accustomed to humans. I am surprised that they have taken to you as they have."

Castiel tilted his head as they watched the small dragons flutter and glide around them, "Can they communicate as you do?"

McKay shook his head, "Not with humans. They understand your languages, but cannot duplicate them. So is their nature. They may be able to communicate with images, impressions even, if you ask. They are quite intelligent."

Gabriel stopped playing with Brie finally. "Do you live in this clearing too? Or just on the mountain?"

"I have many dens in these mountains, though this is my favorite," he indicated the flat rock that leaned against the mountain wall, "There is a cave behind the stone. I spend my time divided between the dragons in these mountains. I am the only Dormientes Draco on this mountain, but there are several more in the mountain range. There are a few other large dragons, various types of Mor Dragans, the large dragons, and quite a few clans of Beag Dragans like this. Usually there is at least one Mor Dragan to every clan of Beag Dragans, though there are two clans of Beag Dragans that do not have a Mor Dragan of any sort looking over them."

Dean and Gabriel looked vaguely confused, so Sam explained, "Mor Dragan just means 'large dragon', it's a sort of blanket term for all of the species of large dragons." He turned back to McKay, "Do you know what specific species the little ones are? We haven't been able to find out. Humans essentially know next to nothing about dragons, but we would like to learn."

McKay regarded them again, this time in a way that made them feel as though they were being measured. Apparently they were not found wanting yet, as McKay nodded his head again before speaking to them, "I trust that you will never use anything I teach you against us. Despite how we are sometimes depicted, we are quite peaceful creatures, usually." McKay settled down a little more as they assured him they only wanted to understand. "Good. The little dragons are Beag Bladhm Dragans, Small Flame Dragons. They are the only smaller species I know of that can actually breathe the flames, though the flames are mostly harmless."

Dean snorted at him, "Lucky, or else my leg would be slightly charred at the very least." Sam rolled his eyes at his brother. Sometimes he wondered if Dean had been dropped on his head as a child, but thus far had kept himself from voicing the question out loud to anyone besides Castiel.

Castiel had tilted his head to the side, apparently quite thoughtful about something. Given the current topics, there was no end of different tangents that he could have gone off into mentally. "I believe that it might be quite imperative to inform you of the fact that there is a woman here searching for dragons. She is currently staying in Jasper Ville, the closest town."

McKay watched the four of them quietly for a moment before speaking, or rather, thinking at them, "Is that so? It is not uncommon for our kind to be hunted. It is just the one woman?"

Gabriel nodded, "As far as we know. Her name is Bela Talbot."

Castiel hesitated briefly, wondering if the little he had found about Bela was truly relevant, before deciding to disclose the information either way. "She seems to be the last of the Talbots, and she doesn't seem to have many associates, though I gather she can be rather impressive all on her own."

"She'd still have to get help if she thought she was actually going to be able to catch or kill a dragon," Sam grumbled emphatically. It was true, even the small dragons would be able to defend themselves from her, especially with McKay around. If almost all of the Beag Dragan clans had a Mor Dragan of some sort looking after them, then Bela's success rate would drop even more. Of course, the chance of the crazy ass bitch ever even finding the dragons was infinitely small.

"It is unlikely that she would find this place, or any of the other clans, without help. In such an event, it would, of course, be handled. As it is, the Talbot family has an automatic death sentence to most of our kind. She should be lucky none of the others have found she is here, or they might have torn the village asunder for a chance to avenge those that have fallen by the Talbots' hands," McKay snorted as though this all amused him quite a lot. It was likely that it did. Dragons probably didn't think the same way humans did, and according to a lot of the stories they were also pretty big on the concept of vengeance. "Tell me, what have you been doing here with small ones? They gave me some rather interesting images to show me parts of their time with you. They do seem to be rather attached."

Finally deciding that the dragon wasn't likely to try and snack on them any time soon, Dean plopped down on the grass in front of him. Shrugging, Dean told him, "A little bit of everything. They respond to some words now, but usually the tone of our voices. It'll be easier knowing their names." He paused, watching as Rey and Evania glided towards him, "Gabriel was trying to teach them sort of flailing dance. I'm not convinced it was an actual form of dancing though."

The large dragon settled down further, curling up like a cat with its golden scales glinting in the sun but still managing to seem attentive and curious. Gabriel huffed, sitting down as well, "Of course it's a form of dancing."

Sam and Castiel followed their example, taking seats in the soft grass while McKay watched the scene seemingly contentedly. "The wee dragons have their own sort of dancing, you know. The Irish called it Tine Damhsa, the Fire Dance."

Castiel looked up suddenly from where he had been scratching under Bran's eye gently, "How old are you, exactly? You said that this clan of Beag Dragans wasn't very old…But you seem to know a lot about different traditions and dragons."

McKay's eyes seemed to twinkle at him, "I am perhaps three hundred years, give or take fifty or so years maybe. These dragons are much younger…they hatched from the last set of clutches here, perhaps ten years gone." He paused as Nyla and Aidyn fluttered around him excitedly before seemingly coming to a conclusion and nodding his head at them slightly. Nyla glided towards Sam enthusiastically, Aidyn moving to Castiel in much the same way. "Before I tell you how I know so much, I believe the wee ones would like to share with you."

All of the small dragons were now crowding in around the human they were most attached to. This wasn't an uncommon thing, so it didn't strike any of the humans as odd at first. The way they had arranged themselves so they were all turned facing them was a bit odd though. Then the barrage of images and feelings came from every direction, the humans seeing themselves through the dragons' eyes. At first it was disorienting for all of them, but an odd noise from McKay apparently helped to settle the small dragons, and it became less disorienting. Rey showed Dean the first day in the clearing, and the second as well. All of the dragons seemed intent on showing their chosen human the day of their meetings, and with the vision came the dragons' feelings about. Most of the feelings were of fondness and excitement, love coming through in the visions put through of the later meetings.

"That," Castiel said dazedly after the onslaught of impressions had passed, "was extraordinary. Are all of them capable of that? Can they do it with anyone?"

McKay made a fond sort of noise at them, "They can, but dragons do not bond with humans often, and prefer to only impart such gifts to one human, or one small group of humans, at a time. These humans are often eventually considered part of their clan, and it makes them very special humans indeed. Most dragons are capable of it, but few ever do it. We are private creatures, you see." McKay watched them interact with the small dragons for some time before he commented again, "Would you like to know how I come by a good part of my knowledge now?"

Sam and Castiel both looked positively intrigued, sharing a look and nodding as Sam said, "We'd like that very much, if you're willing to tell us." Gabriel and Dean were both paying attention, or rather they were giving McKay about a quarter of their attention while bestowing the rest of it upon the dragons that were still crowded around them.

McKay gave them what might have been a grin, though it did look rather frightening with the rather large teeth. "Dragons have a collective memory, passed down from parents to their clutch, and so on and so forth. I have all of the essential knowledge of languages, some histories, dragons, and various other things. This is one thing that all dragon species have in common, though we all perceive things in different ways."

Castiel and Sam nodded, taking in this new information. Gabriel hmm'd at them, "What about the Tine Damhsa?"

"It is a dance of celebration, and a dance of joy. All dragons have a dance like it, but this one is unique to the Beag Bladhm Dragans, none of the other dragons, even the other forms of Beag Dragans, are small and flexible enough to do the intricate dance," McKay informed them as the small dragons fluttered up into the air.

The clan of small dragons began their dance; scales of red, green, black, gray, purple, and blue flashing and glittering in the sunbeams as they moved. They spun and weaved through each other and the air, small bursts of flames spouted at times, all of them always in perfect tandem. It looked for the entire world like a small dragon ballet performed on wings instead of feet, eye catching and almost unfathomable. The dance was beautiful and enticing, a dance to make those without wings long for the sky. The five of them that were not participating watched enraptured, the beauty of the sight not lost on them.

When the ten small dragons finally finished their dance and settled back around the group of humans, McKay let out a sigh, "No matter how many times I see the Tine Damhsa it always seems to be more beautifully done than the last time. There was a time, long ago, when it was performed more often, a time when it was not so rare for humans to see it performed. Dragons have long since lost touch with humans, mostly by the fault of those that would hunt us for their own cruel ends. It is good to see the wee ones able to connect with humans that do not wish them harm."

"We're greatly honored that all of you are sharing so much with us," Castiel told him solemnly, seeming to offer the sentiment to the small dragons as well. The small dragons chittered at him while McKay had simply nodded in understanding and acceptance.

The four humans stayed there in the clearing until the sun was close to setting and a need for food had them making the choice to head back to the cabin, which was now called 'home' most of the time. It was as much home to them already as their dorm rooms had been, better for the fact that they only had to share it with each other. The four of them had been mostly thoughtful and quiet on the return trip to the cabin, a companionable silence settling over them.

When they made it back, the four of them dropped down onto the sectional in the living area unceremoniously. Gabriel curled up into Sam in a way that had quickly become normal in the last week. Sam wrapped his arms around the smaller male without thinking about, and started threading his long fingers through Gabriel's hair gently. "Well," Gabriel murmured, all but purring at the attention, "we've officially met two different breeds of dragons, and found out more about dragons in a week than we ever would have been able to reading those stupid ass books."

Castiel smiled at him from his spot on the sectional. Dean had his head in Castiel's lap and was contorted in an odd way so that he was half curled on the couch as well. Castiel hummed, "That we did. Perhaps, one day, I will have enough information to write one of those books. One with proper information, information that does not have twenty thousand holes in it."

Sam grinned, "There were an awful lot of issues with those books, weren't there? There might have been one usable sentence on each page. It's sort of a waste of paper to even really print the books, isn't it?"

Dean waved his arm at them, "Yes, yes, the books were wrong, dragons are awesome. Now that we have that covered, someone make me dinner."

Castiel raised his eyebrow, tilting forward so his own face was hovering over Dean's. "I was under the impression that it was your turn to help make dinner, Dean."

"Yeah, because he looks like he is so inclined to cook. He might burn the entire kitchen down if we let him in there to cook anyways. I'll cook if someone else will clean up later," Sam told them, ruffling Gabriel's hair slightly.

Gabriel turned so he could wrap his arm around Sam's middle, "No! You can't get up. I just got comfortable. You have to stay now."

Sam chuckled but Dean was clearly not amused by this. "Oh no, you don't," he grumbled, chucking a pillow at Gabriel and hitting him square in the head. "If Sam doesn't cook, we don't get to eat. Or we'll have to make something frozen, which I won't be happy about. I've grown used to them feeding us real food, damn it."

Castiel shook his head fondly, "I don't know how the two of you managed your freshman year of college without us."

Gabriel shrugged, "We ate a lot of super unhealthy shit, mostly." He grumbled some more as Sam moved out from underneath him and headed to the kitchen, Gabriel making sure to throw the pillow Dean had thrown at him at Sam, narrowly missing him. Gabriel pointed his finger in Dean's direction, "I blame you. I had a nice comfy, warm pillow until you had to go demanding food. What kind of friend are you, anyways?"

"I'm the kind of friend that doesn't want you to starve?" Dean asked him innocently.

Castiel snorted, "I cannot decide if the two of you are amusing or annoying."

Dean grinned up at Castiel affectionately, lifting his hand up to ruffle Castiel's hair, "Yeah, but you love us."

Castiel huffed, smiling gently, "Perhaps. You should let me up so I can go help Sam. The two of you will be responsible for cleaning the kitchen up later."

The two older brothers groaned as Castiel left the room. Dean huffed, "You're right. This is my entire fault. We should have just put one of the frozen things in the oven and made a salad. I hate clean up duty."

Gabriel snickered at him, "You are definitely the drama queen of this little group. Seriously." Gabriel moved into a sitting position, finally moving from where he had been when Sam was still his pillow. Dean had merely flipped him off and rested his arm over his eyes. "You know if you take a nap I'll find a horrid way to wake you up in retaliation."

"You're just out to ruin my life. Next you'll tell me I can't sleep in the same bed with Cas anymore," Dean grumbled the last sentence so low he hoped Gabriel wouldn't actually hear him.

Of course, Dean couldn't actually be that lucky. Gabriel gave Dean a considering look, even though the other male couldn't actually see it. Finally Gabriel sighed, then said, "Do I even want to know how the two of you are fitting comfortably on one of those beds?"

Dean shrugged, "He sleeps half on top of me most nights. That first night we both fell off the bed at one point. He damn near elbowed me in the face last night too. Actually, it's sort of a miracle that we haven't killed each other just sleeping in the same bed yet."

Gabriel snorted, "I guess now would be a good time to tell you I've been sleeping in Sam's room. I could move my stuff in there, and you and Cas could move into the bigger room, so you don't keep beating each other up in your sleep."

"I get the feeling that one day I'm going to regret locking the two of you in that closet," Dean groaned as he sat up. "Fine, yeah, I would totally appreciate not getting elbowed in the face, or anywhere else, any time soon. I'll even help you move your shit as long as I don't have to hear about you and Sam sharing a bed. I think I could go my whole life without that imagery, you know."

"Yeah, well, I could have done without that too, so I guess it makes us even. Do we even bother to tell them what we're up to?" Gabriel asked Dean curiously. On the one hand, if Castiel knew they were going to move his stuff he might have a fit. If they didn't tell him, they might get enough points for taking the lead and doing it that it would outweigh the faux pas of moving his things to begin with.

Dean wrinkled his nose, thinking about how that might play out, before shaking his head, "Let's just not. Maybe it'll be a good enough surprise that he won't get pissy. If we hurry we might even be able to finish doing it before they finish making diner. Did Sam mention what exactly he planned on cooking?"

Gabriel shook his head, "Nah. Though I know there was chicken in the fridge that needed cooked, so probably that." They made their way down the hallway to the room that had originally been Gabriel's.

It was pretty easy to tell that Gabriel hadn't actually been staying in the room. The bed was made, and there weren't really any clothes or anything else lying around the room. The room was neat, a sure sign that Gabriel really hadn't been staying in it. Gabriel just shrugged when Dean raised his brow at him. "Sam insisted I tidy it if I wasn't going to be staying in it. Of course, Sam insists that our room stays tidy too. Mostly that just means I can't leave my clothes all over the place."

"At least it will make it easier if we don't have to clean as we go. This might take a lot less time than I thought it would, sweet!" Dean said, following Gabriel over to the dresser where he had some of his things still. They started the task of moving things between the three rooms, working cohesively as a team, something they had learned to do through years of practice and living together.

Sam and Castiel worked much in the same cohesive fashion as they prepared dinner. About ten minutes into preparing the chicken parmesan, Sam noticed it get relatively quiet in the other room. He glanced at Castiel, who seemed to be making the same observation. "Do you think we should check on them? They're being almost too quiet."

Castiel shrugged, "Perhaps they fell asleep. They aren't in the kitchen, so we should probably just be thankful for that, and leave them to their own devices so that we can get dinner ready in a timely fashion. The two of them can be horridly distracting in a kitchen." Castiel loved Dean and Gabriel, truly he did, but sometimes he simply wanted to strangle the two of them. Most of the time they made more of a mess in the kitchen than they did anything helpful, and Castiel was grateful for the quiet of working with Sam tonight. It gave him a chance to think over the many things McKay had told them, the great knowledge and responsibility that had been imparted to them.

"Do you think," Sam started glancing up at Castiel, "that when McKay told us about humans sometimes being accepted as part of a dragon clan, he meant that that might be what happens with us?"

Castiel thought about it for a moment. They way McKay had spoken about it; it did seem relevant to their situation. The older, and much larger, dragon had told them that the small dragons didn't often bond with humans as the clan had bonded with the four of them. "I think that perhaps he did mean that. It did seem like a bit of information he would not have parted with if it had not been relevant. We will know in time, I suppose."

Sam nodded, still looking thoughtful, "It would be neat, wouldn't it?" He laughed, "More than just neat, I guess. They could teach us so much…so many things we would never know otherwise. How did we even get lucky enough to find them?"

Castiel smiled at him, "I do not know Sam, but I am quite grateful. I am also grateful that we all took this trip together. It means a lot to me."

Sam just smiled at him again, the trip was turning out to mean a lot to all of them, even though he was sure Dean would tell them that they shouldn't be having so many chick flick moments. In a lot of ways, this trip was feeling more and more like a new beginning, a new cycle in their lives to explore. They continued about their work preparing dinner quietly, each of them immersed in their own thoughts.

What must have been almost an hour later (Sam knew it had to be that long because the food was almost finished) Dean and Gabriel sauntered into the room looking smug and accomplished. Castiel furrowed his brow at them, "Do I even want to know what the two of you are up to that has made you look like that?"

Dean grinned at him, "We'll show you after dinner. When is dinner, anyways?"

Sam through the kitchen towel he had just used to try his hands on at Dean's head, "In a few minutes. You and Gabriel can set the table since you're already in here." Dean and Gabriel both groaned, but obediently got up to do as they were told. Now if only Sam could get them to listen to him and Cas all the time, things like burning water would not happen.

After dinner, during which there were no complaints by Dean or Gabriel about the food (just lots of sex noises), Dean and Gabriel cleaned up the kitchen while Sam and Castiel sat at the table discussing the events of the day. The two of them winced every time there was a loud noise or a splash from the other two, and they both visibly relaxed once the dishwasher was finally going.

"Alright," Dean told them, wiping his hands on a dish towel. "Come on so we can show what we did while you two cooked. Then we can go back to our usual routine of watching movies until one of us passes out," Dean said almost gleefully as he dropped the towel onto the counter.

Gabriel snickered as he and Dean led them straight to the room that had been Gabriel's. "Tada!" Dean exclaimed loudly and waved his hands with a flourish.

Castiel tilted his head to the side as he curiously looked around the room. He didn't really understand why they were looking into Gabriel's room, or at least, he hadn't understood until he noticed that several of his books were sitting on one of the night stands. "You switched out our rooms?"

Gabriel coughed almost awkwardly, "Well, Sam and I have been sharing anyways, and now Dean can't complain about falling off the bed or almost getting hit in the eye. He whines a lot, actually." Dean elbowed Gabriel's arm for that comment, though Gabriel seemed to think it was worth it.

"So, you actually managed to move all of the stuff without any accidents? Really? You can't even do the dishes that quietly!" Sam said, looking at them oddly, as though perhaps they were some new species of older brother that he hadn't encountered before.

Dean snorted, "We can, it just takes more effort than we're usually willing to expend on such things. Besides, it's fun to watch you make all sorts of bitch faces at us when we're noisy."

Castiel ignored them, "This was very thoughtful. Thank you, Dean, Gabriel."

Dean and Gabriel beamed at him, Gabriel ruffling his hair affectionately, "Great, now that that's over, I don't want to hear about how you and Dean are sharing a bed again. Now, can we get on with our nightly ritual and watch that movie?"

"Sure," Dean told Gabriel gruffly, "as long as I never have to hear about you and Sam sharing the same bed again either."

Castiel rolled his eyes and Sam groaned at them, "So we're all just going to live in one big ball of denial, is that it?"

Gabriel and Dean gave their assent to that, gently shoving each other and arguing over who would pick the movie as they made their way into the living room again. Sam and Castiel shared a long exasperated look. Sam shook his head finally, "They're absolutely impossible. Sometimes I wonder why we even bother."

Castiel chuckled, "We love them, or we would not. Sometimes I am still surprised by how child like the two of them are, but they have always been that way, I suppose. They either act entirely too mature for their ages, or entirely too immature. It seems to be a vicious cycle for us, since we deal with them, doesn't it?"

Sam nodded as they made their way into the living room where their older brothers had apparently already picked some sort of car movie to watch. Sam and Castiel often dealt with Dean and Gabriel with what Castiel described as fond exasperation. It fit, in Sam's opinion. The two of them spent more time watching over Dean and Gabriel than either of their older brothers realized, though it was probably good that neither of them had realized it yet. Some things were just better kept between Sam and Castiel, just as Sam was sure that Dean and Gabriel had secrets that were just between the two of them. Their usual routine was uninterrupted and the night was calm and peaceful all around them.

It was entirely different story in Jasper Ville, where Bela Talbot had just gotten her hands on some very interesting information. Of course, most of the time something Bela found truly interesting ended up being quite deadly to someone, or something, else involved with this interesting matter. If Bela was being honest with herself, she had quite thought that this trip into the mountains chasing after dragons that probably no longer existed would be a waste of time, money, and energy. She was not a fan of wasting any of those things, especially now when she was the last real Talbot and her contacts list grew shorter every day.

She huffed incredulously as she examined the map that had been brought to her. On it there was a large red dot where a rather large golden dragon had been spotted the day before. It looked like she would have to get her hands dirty after all. She smiled, her dark hair hiding most of her face as she leaned forward to get a better look at the map spread out on the table in front of her. Tomorrow she would go explore the area where the dragon sighting had been reported to be by a hiker. It looked as though her luck might be changing after all.


	10. Chapter 10

Dean huffed sleepily as he narrowly missed getting hit across the face yet again. It didn't appear to matter how large the bed they were sleeping in was, one way or another Castiel almost always ended up laying almost directly on top of him. He groaned again, trying to decide whether it was actually a respectable hour to get up, or if it was still too early to be coherent. Castiel mumbled against Dean's neck where his face was buried, but then settled and seemed to drift back off to sleep. Well, if Cas wasn't getting up yet, that meant Dean certainly didn't have to. He pulled the blankets back up around them, ignoring the small amount of sunlight peeking through the curtains and promptly fading back into sleep.

Gabriel, it turns out, was just like his brother when it came to sleeping. He was happily splayed on top of Sam when the alarm on Sam's phone went off. It caused the younger male to grumble about breakfast and dragons before deciding that sleep was better and reaching over to try and turn the damned thing off. Gabriel smirked against the skin of Sam's chest, "Morning Sunshine."

"Kindly tell the sun to go fuck itself so I can go back to sleep," Sam mumbled at Gabriel grumpily before wrapping his arms even more tightly around Gabriel and refusing to open his eyes.

"I like where this is going. Does this mean we don't have to get up early?" Gabriel asked him quietly, afraid that if he spoke too loudly Sam would decide that it was time to get up after all, and honestly, Gabriel wasn't really behind getting up quite this early. It couldn't be any later than seven, and he was all for sleeping in.

Sam groaned, "Yes, now be quiet so I can go back to sleep. If you aren't going to go back to sleep, be quiet, yeah?"

Gabriel snickered, but fell quiet after that, and the two of them drifted back off to sleep. They slept for a good hour before a crashing noise outside had both of them startled, sitting up quickly and sharing an odd look before rushing out of the room. Dean and Castiel were already out in the hallway. Dean looked absolutely scandalized at having been woken in such a manner, while Castiel mostly looked worried about what might be occurring outside the cabin.

The four of them crept quietly to the windows in the living area. Dean got there first, moving the curtains just enough so that he could peer out and try and see what all of the commotion was about. At first he didn't see anything out of the ordinary, but a flash of color off to one side had him jumping and grumbling. "It looks like it's the dragons. How did they even know where we were? And what the hell are they doing here? It's way too close to town for them to be out here."

Sam and Castiel were both out of the cabin before Dean had even finished speaking, Gabriel and Dean following closely behind. All ten of the small dragons seemed to be there, all of them in quite an uproar as well. None of them would settle, and they were just constant smudges of color in the air around them for several minutes. Finally, Bran settled on Castiel's shoulder, his tail wrapping around Castiel's neck lightly, as if the small dragon was afraid that Castiel might disappear. The other dragons took their cues from Bran most of the time, and now wasn't much of an exception. The other dragons settled down around them, though their version of settling involved a lot of moving around anxiously. Mostly the dragons kept twining tails around their legs, so that none of them could really move from where they were without tripping all over each other.

Finally Castiel made an odd choked sound, "It would appear that McKay has gone to check on a clan of Beag Bladhm Dragans, and while he was gone Bela came snooping near the clearing. Bran does not think that they were spotted as they left, but he didn't seem to know where else to lead the clan. He seems to think Bela is some sort of demon creature, actually."

Sam blinked from the dragons to Castiel and back blearily before sighing, "So Bela somehow found out for certain that there were dragons in the mountains, someone gave her a location, and now she's actually found their dens?"

"I highly doubt that she will know what she is looking at immediately. She might not investigate the dens at all," Castiel said doubtfully, frowning at the mess of dragons in front of him.

"Does that honestly seem likely to you?" Dean grunted as Evania clambered around on his shoulders, chattering away consistently in his ear. "Hush for a second okay, Eva? Look guys, she didn't seem like the kind of person to just easily give up on something like this. If dragons are as hard to find for most people as we thought they would be, then finding one here could set her for life if she could catch it or kill it. None of the dragons on the mountain, in the mountain range are safe, even the little ones. This is a serious threat to them. What are we supposed to do to keep them safe? What if she finds the cabin?"

Gabriel furrowed his brow, "If she comes here, it's trespassing. Actually, if we can find proof of her being up in the clearing, that's trespassing too."

Sam shook his head, "She's not stupid, and from what Cas has told us about her family and what they do, she isn't going to give up. Somehow I don't think threatening her with trespassing is only going to make her want to know what's going on here even more. It would be like sending up a red flag, and announcing to the world that we're hiding something here. Announcing that we're hiding dragons here."

"Great, so what exactly are we supposed to do here?" Dean grumbled, rubbing under Evania's chin to calm her down. Rey wound around Dean's calves, and he was infinitely glad that he wasn't trying to walk anywhere, or he would have fallen face first to the ground. Bela had apparently truly frightened all of the Beag Bladhm Dragans. The images that Rey and Evania were giving him occasionally were blurred and came with frightened impressions, but they did seem to think that Bela was a monster or demon of some sort. Dean wondered vaguely if she really was.

Castiel hummed quietly, "Perhaps we should get the little ones inside, and hope to wait out Bela. One of us will have to go into town today anyways; it will look less suspicious on our part if at least two of us are seen in town on a regular basis."

Sam looked doubtfully at the ten small dragons that Castiel was thinking of putting into the cabin. Granted, the cabin wasn't small by any means, but it wasn't exactly a dragon safe zone, either. Somehow he didn't think that this would end well, but it didn't look as though they had another choice at the moment, not if they wanted to keep the Beag Bladhm Dragans safe. "Alright. Okay, so we get the dragons inside, and hope for the best. Who goes to town? We don't need much, but we need things like milk…some produce."

"Well, Cas and Dean went last time, so we can go this time," Gabriel muttered, trying to make his way through the clan of small dragons to the door of the cabin. "We'll help them get settled in, and give Bela time to hopefully make her way back to town. Then we can go and get what we need from the store. With any luck, things will calm down, and then tomorrow we'll be able to check on the clearing, see if it's okay to take them back there…Or maybe we should give it a couple of days."

Plan of action decided, the four humans tried their best to get the small herd of dragons inside of the cabin. The dragons caught on quickly, but were instantly curious about almost everything. Castiel frowned worriedly, "New plan. We should put away anything breakable that we don't want the dragons to find. Perhaps when the two of you go into town you could stop by the rock shop. I am sure they would be less interested in these things if they had their own stones to examine and appreciate."

Dean lunged forward to stop a vase from falling off the top of one of the small tables that was placed around the cabin. He caught it, barely, while the small dragons fluttered around the living area curiously, mindless of the breakable objects they could knock over. "Good idea. Let's do that before anything else almost gets broken."

"Alright," Sam said, flailing around a little bit as though he wasn't sure exactly what he was supposed to be doing right now. "Maybe someone should try and distract them or something. If they are distracted then we might actually have a chance of getting the most breakable shit put away before they destroy anything unintentionally. I'm all for stopping at the rock shop and giving them something they can play with that isn't going to get destroyed if they drop it by accident."

Gabriel tried to get all of the dragons into one area, doing his best to distract them while Castiel, Dean, and Sam ran around the house trying to put everything even remotely breakable and valuable away. It would have been easier for them to move everything before bringing the dragons inside, they quickly found. Rey was the cause of Dean tripping more than once while he was trying to put away a couple of the vases from the living room. The four of them were quickly becoming thankful that there really wasn't that much that was in real danger from the dragons. It certainly made their lives easier.

"Perhaps the two of you should not wait to go into town. The sooner they have something else to occupy them, the less we will have to worry about them breaking something in their excitement over their new surroundings," Castiel told them while the dragons swarmed around their feet, chattering excitedly as they darted from one spot to another to examine everything.

"Right," Gabriel said, grabbing his keys and opening the door.

Dean cleared his throat, giving Gabriel a once over pointedly. "Dude, I don't know if you've realized this, but you're still in your pajamas. You kind of need to put on real clothes if you don't want the locals to give you horrid looks. You might also want to grab your wallet so that you have money and, I don't know, a driver's license. Besides, you can't take Sam to the rock shop in pajamas, not if you ever want to see him again. I wouldn't put it past Becky to be enough of a crazy person to try and keep him locked in her basement or something."

Gabriel went from looking amused at his own expense to looking down right jealous and a little scary when Dean mentioned Becky trying to lock Sam in her basement. "Right then," Gabriel grumbled, pointing a finger at Sam, "You. You go put on the most absolutely hideous thing you brought with you. Do it now."

Sam looked somewhere between disgruntled and embarrassed, grumbling at him, "I don't own anything hideous Gabriel. You're adorable when you're jealous and trying to defend my honor though."

"Three words Sam: orange plaid flannel," Gabriel told him, moving forward to push him hurriedly to the bedroom. Their five dragons followed them curiously, getting under their feet so that every time they stepped forward it was more of a stumble.

Dean and Castiel watched the exchange with looks of mild fascination. Castiel shrugged finally, "That is a rather…interesting shirt."

"Sure," Dean agreed, "if by interesting you mean atrociously ugly. It's bad, because Sam and I have similar wardrobes, but he absolutely did not get his taste in colors from me. He got the plaid and flannel from me, sure, but not the color choices. Orange is not my color. It isn't his, either, but he doesn't seem to realize that." Dean shook his head. He had seriously contemplated trying to throw that shirt out, but his big dope of a brother was oddly attached to the damned thing. He wore the orange plaid flannel shirt as much as he wore his favorite hoodie before Gabriel stole it. It really just showed that Gabriel had at least a decent taste in clothes, because he hadn't bothered with the damned orange shirt.

Castiel smiled slightly, "I highly doubt Becky actually cares what Sam is wearing. She probably wouldn't notice if he came into the store wearing a burlap bag." Castiel thought about that for a moment, "Actually, she might prefer that he wear that into the store. I doubt a burlap bag would cover much of Sam."

Dean made a disgruntled face at Castiel, "Really? Did you have to go there? I do not need that image in my head, thanks. Ugh."

Gabriel came out into the living area about that time, frowning slightly, "I really don't like that shirt. Maybe the dragons can get rid of it for me while we're gone. It's dirty so he can't wear it." Gabriel himself was already dressed, and presumably that's what Sam was currently doing. Gabriel was wearing a plain, if bright, blue shirt and jeans which was a rather normal outfit for him.

Dean grinned at him, "Sure they can."

"Sure who can what now?" Sam asked as he came into the room wearing a simple black shirt and jeans.

"Dean was just assuring Gabriel that the little dragons would be on their absolute best behavior while the two of you are gone," Castiel told Sam with a straight face.

Sam looked at him dubiously, "If you say so. I don't really believe you, because you're horrible at covering for them, but I'll drop it because I trust you not to let them do anything stupid." This, of course, was true. Sam trusted Castiel to keep their brothers in line, or he might be opposed to Castiel actually dating his brother. He wondered vaguely if the two of them had actually ever had a real date, or if they had just simply decided they were together. Sam didn't care too much about real dates, he was just grateful to spend his time with Gabriel and that was enough for him. Somehow he thought that Castiel (who was awkward in most social settings) and Dean (who had a serious aversion to 'chick flick moments') would prefer to just spend their time together as well.

Gabriel grunted as Orin tried to wrap his tail around both of Gabriel's ankles. Gabriel frowned down at the little dragon as it gave him a rather disconcerting image of the woman that was apparently Bela. "Hey, it's alright. Sam and I will be back in like two hours, I promise. We won't even be gone long enough for you to miss us, and we certainly won't get eaten by the evil demon chick, okay?" The small dragon looked at him forlornly, but moved back when Gabriel gestured to him to do so.

"We won't be gone long, guys, and Dean and Cas are here to take care of you. You'll be fine," Sam told them, though even his calming tone and words did little to soothe the little dragons who had quickly become worried when they had realized two of the humans were leaving. They seemed to think that Bela was a danger to all of them, and the dragons might have been right. If Bela found out that they were trying to hide the dragons, who knew what she might try and do.

Dean and Castiel tried to keep any of the clan of Beag Bladhm Dragans from following Gabriel and Sam outside. Sam and Gabriel made their way out of the cabin quickly, trying not to cause the clan of small dragons any more distress than they were already apparently under. Dean and Castiel made soothing noises, or noises that they seemed to think were supposed to be soothing, trying to calm the dragons down.

"Perhaps," Castiel murmured thoughtfully as he watched the dragons worriedly, "Perhaps we should put a movie on and see if they will watch it. I highly doubt they will have ever seen anything like it, and provided they do not try and attack the television, it could keep them interested until Sam and Gabriel can make it back with something they will find slightly more interesting."

Dean tilted his head to the side as he browsed the movie titles quickly, raising his eyebrows as he came across one of the titles. He grinned over his shoulder at Castiel, "Which one of you three owns 'How to Train Your Dragon'?"

Castiel blinked at him oddly, "Gabriel, I think. It's a cute movie. Why does it matter?"

"Oh, no reason. This just gives me even more things to mock him with, that's all," Dean said, humming as he put the movie in and tried to fast forward through the previews as quickly as he could. The dragons quickly gathered in front of the television once they noticed that something was actually going on.

Castiel watched the little dragons with a fond smile on his face. "It's meant to watch, not to kill, alright? Don't attack it," he told them, hoping that the dragons would be so interested in what was happening on the screen that it wouldn't even occur to them to attempt to attack the television. The dragons didn't even spare him a glance as they watched the movie start playing on the screen.

Dean grinned in satisfaction, "Well, that ought to keep them occupied for a while. How long of an attention span do you think they might have for something like this, anyways? Sam was always a pretty quiet kid that could occupy himself for hours at a time…he sat through movies all the time as a kid…and sometimes the dragons seem a lot like kids or cats…"

Castiel continued to watch them, thinking it over for a moment. "I think that they will remain interested for at least half of the movie. They might find the portrayal of dragons amusing…or insulting. They might not realize they are supposed to be dragons at all."

"Let's hope that they don't connect them with real dragons. I think they might get seriously insulted," Dean mumbled, grabbing Castiel's hand and tugging him towards the sectional. Dean sat down and tugged until Castiel finally sat down beside him, cuddling immediately into his side. Dean could tell everyone on the planet that he didn't cuddle, but the truth was he rather enjoyed cuddling close to Castiel, and he never turned down a cuddle from the other male now that Sam and Gabriel knew about them. Castiel had certainly never complained.

Sam and Gabriel, meanwhile, were arguing over whether to go to the grocery store or the rock shop first. Sam huffed at Gabriel, "If we wait to go to the rock shop until after, anything cold we get could spoil in the heat in the car while we're in the rock shop."

"Fine," Gabriel grumbled, "You can stay in the car and keep it running so the air is on for the food, and I'll go in and collect some stones for our dragon guests."

"You're being ridiculous about this Gabriel. She's one tiny little girl, and it's not like I would willingly spend any time with her, so there isn't anything to worry about. Despite what Dean says, she isn't actually likely to try and kidnap me to keep in her basement or anything," Sam told his boyfriend, getting frustrated with him. He was actually a little surprised at how jealous and possessive Gabriel got when Becky seemed to be involved with things. Becky still made Sam nervous, sure, but he could deal with that, and really, Gabriel like this was kind of adorable right along with being frustrating.

Gabriel just glowered out the windshield as he drove. "I just don't like how she looks at you, or pretends she doesn't understand personal space. Although I guess if we do go there first we get it over with sooner."

Sam grinned triumphantly, "See, was it so hard to agree to do things my way?"

"In return for you getting your way, yet again, I demand cuddles on the couch when we get back…and maybe a nap. A nap sounds pretty good right now. Why did we agree to come to town again?" Gabriel mumbled irately as he pulled up to the rock shop and slid the car into park.

"Because Cas and Dean dealt with the crazy last time, so technically it makes it our turn. Personally I think Dean likes to torture me by making me spend time in proximity with Becky," Sam groaned as he got out of the car and followed Gabriel into the store. His entire plan for making it through this if Becky was working was to manage to keep Gabriel in between him and Becky at all times. It had worked relatively well in the past, so there was no reason that it shouldn't work now.

Gabriel grabbed Sam's hand to hold in his as they walked into the store, grinning slightly at Sam, "Alright Sammy, let's grab what we need so we can get back and make sure they aren't defiling the couch. There's no telling what the two of them might get up to if we leave them alone long enough."

Sam scrunched up his face, "Did you really have to go there?"

Before Gabriel could answer him, the force that was Becky suddenly popped her head out through the doorway that led to the second room of the shop. "Hi guys! I didn't think I would see you in here again so soon!"

Sam made a startled noise, inching slightly behind Gabriel already as Becky smiled brightly at them in a way that made her look like she was clearly plotting something. Gabriel tugged lightly on Sam's hand, frowning slightly at the annoying girl, "Yeah, well, Dean's developed a sort of love for collecting the things, so we told him we'd stop by while we were in town and pick up some more stones for him."

Becky raised an eyebrow at them, coming out of the second room, "They were in here not too long ago, weren't they? That must be some obsession. Anyways, are you guys busy tonight? A local band is playing down at the bar. It would be cool if you came!" Becky bounced on the balls of her feet in an excited manner, as though she was excited.

Sam wrinkled his nose up, trying not to look as though he'd smelled something particularly bad. "Uh, we'd love to, but we can't. Castiel has an aversion to bars and crowded places…and loud music," Sam told her.

"He also has an aversion to people, actually. I'm pretty sure all four of us do, really," Gabriel told her, trying to keep his tone casual. Even though Becky wasn't trying to invade Sam's personal space, which might have been a bit hard with Gabriel in between them, she still seemed as though she was up to something. He particularly wasn't fond of the way that she kept giving Sam a once over. Gabriel sort of wished that she was after Dean instead, though Castiel was a lot more likely to actually try and kill her in this sort of situation. No matter how innocent she seemed, there was still something about her that just grated against his nerves and made Sam a near nervous wreck.

Becky frowned at them slightly, looking rather put off at the thought that they didn't seem to want to go, "Are you sure? The band is really good; it'll be a lot of fun! You wouldn't all four have to come, or anything. There's no rule that says all of you have to come."

Gabriel narrowed his eyes at her slightly, though it didn't seem as though she seemed to notice. As usual, Becky was watching Sam avidly. Gabriel cleared his throat slightly, "Well, we sort of don't actually do anything like that, pretty much ever, unless it's all four of us. We kind of have plans to grill out tonight anyways. We've been enjoying being able to stay in and relax."

Sam nodded, agreeing with his boyfriend as the two of them picked through the collection of stones, quickly finding the ones the little dragons preferred. It seemed odd to know what sort of stones small dragons preferred to spend their time examining, but then, their whole lives were odd and getting more odd every day. With any luck, nothing would be broken by the time they got back, and McKay would be back in their area in the next day or two. Sam couldn't imagine what the damage might be to the cabin if the dragons were confined to it for more than a couple of days. It seemed like a disaster waiting patiently to happen.

Becky was disappointed that they wouldn't go to the bar, but she continued to chatter their ears off continuously as they picked out the stones. Gabriel had tuned her out the moment she started talking again, but Sam made little 'hm' noises every so often, which was probably part of the reason she liked him so much. Sam always at least tried to make it seem like he was listening, and usually he was, when people talked to him. Even the annoying people like Becky were usually given at least part of his attention, which was probably more than the girl got from anyone else.

Finally the two of them put the stones they wanted on the counter, just as the door opened and a brunette woman walked in. Becky waved at her slightly, looking as though she tensed up a little when she realized who it was. She smiled slightly at the woman, "Hi Ms. Talbot. What can I do for you?"

Gabriel and Sam both startled at the name, realizing that this must be Bela Talbot, the woman their clan of small dragons thought was a monster or demon of some type. This was the woman that was currently hunting dragons. She looked fairly normal, if not stuck up, "Hello Becky. I just dropped by to see if you've heard anything new about dragon sightings in the area."

Sam fought not to flinch while Gabriel glowered slightly. Becky continued to check out their purchases as she replied to Bela, "Nope, sure haven't. Like I told you last time, most of the sightings are on different places on the mountain range. You don't hear a lot about dragons down this way." Becky finished wrapping the stones for them as Gabriel paid her, handing Sam the small bags after a moment, "You guys have a good day! I'll see you around!"

Both Sam and Gabriel murmured goodbyes to her, edging their way around Bela who gave them a speculative look. Once the two of them were safely in the car, Sam groaned, "She really is kind of creepy. The dragons might actually be right about her."

Gabriel snorted, "I think I've changed my mind. As much as I would like to feed Becky to dragons, I think I would rather deal with Becky and feed Bela to McKay. I'm not sure he would actually want to eat her, but maybe he could roast her or something." Gabriel rather liked the idea, at least. It seemed to have a certain merit to it, mostly that she wouldn't be trying to hunt the dragons.

Thankfully, their trip to the store and their drive back to the cabin were both quite uneventful. They weren't sure exactly what they would be coming home to, so Sam opened the door hesitantly, praying silently that the cabin hadn't been destroyed while they were away. Oddly enough, the cabin was mostly quiet, with the exception of the television playing softly like background noise. Sam blinked in surprise as Gabriel stood on tip toe to look over his shoulder and into the cabin.

"Well, it doesn't seem as though it's been destroyed on this end. Let's get things put away before we check on the rest of the cabin," Gabriel murmured to Sam, hoping he was being quiet enough that if the dragons were awake and about they didn't hear him. They made it into the kitchen with the few bags of groceries they had gotten, quickly putting them away before heading into the living room.


	11. Chapter 11

The scene before them was not exactly what they had expected to return to. Actually, Sam and Gabriel had pretty much expected to come back to the cabin to find it trashed completely. And yet, that wasn't what they walked into the living area to find at all. Instead there was their clan of small dragons watching the end of a dragon movie, with Castiel and Dean curled around each other asleep on the couch. The dragons turned their heads to inspect the newcomers, but went right back to watching the end of their movie as soon as they knew that Gabriel and Sam were both intact.

Gabriel blinked at the scene in front of them, "This…was not what I thought we would come back to. I can't believe they put on a movie to keep the dragons entertained and then fell asleep, the bastards."

"You really can't believe that? Have you met Dean?" Sam asked Gabriel incredulously.

"Point," Gabriel murmured while he picked up a pillow that had fallen to the floor. He grinned mischievously while Sam groaned before launching the pillow directly at his old roommate's face. Dean groaned, reaching out a hand to ward off what was attacking him, while the dragons turned around to pay attention.

Castiel grumbled, opening his eyes, "Why did you find it necessary to throw a pillow at us?"

Gabriel smiled at his brother, not even bothering to feign innocence, "You're over here napping on the job. You were supposed to make sure that nothing happened to the cabin or the dragons, not canoodle on the couch while using the TV as a dragon sitter. You just made us go into town so that you could go back to sleep. That, dear brother, is called cheating."

"Ugh, can you be quiet? Some of us are trying to catch up on our sleep here. This is supposed to be summer vacation, you know," Dean all but growled at them, throwing the pillow back in their direction haphazardly. He missed both Gabriel and Sam, but managed to fling the pillow right into the middle of the dragons where they were still curled up watching the four of them interact from the floor. The dragons chattered, clearly annoyed at Dean, fluttering in different directions in a whirl of colors.

Gabriel snorted, "See what you did, Dean? They were being completely peaceful, watching their movie, and you had to go and throw a pillow at them!"

"Oh, is that how it is? The movie is over, and you threw a pillow at me first! So technically, it's your fault that the dragons are in an uproar," Dean grouched at him, sitting up and glaring at them. He didn't get much glaring in before both Evania and Rey pounced on top of him, chattering loudly at him and giving him the impression that the little dragons were all quite hungry. He winced, frowning slightly, "I don't suppose we know what to feed ten very hungry little dragons, do we?"

Sam shrugged, "I don't think I've ever seen them eat, unless they were stealing bits of whatever we were having. Is it safe for them to eat the food that we do?"

Castiel watched the clan of dragons curiously for a moment, "I rather think that they are used to catching their own meals, and eating berries and such that can be found in the woods. I imagine they eat quite a bit of fish as well, with the spring we found a few days ago so close to their clearing."

"We have some fish in the freezer…we would have to cook it, I think, since it's been frozen," Sam mumbled wandering into the kitchen with Castiel following behind him. Bran and Nyla followed them, the other dragons beginning to settle back in front of the television while Gabriel put in another movie for them. Rey and Evania settled in sitting with Dean, while Orin and Brie climbed all over Gabriel once he sat down on the sectional.

"Did we just get out of having to do anything with the food yet again?" Gabriel asked Dean quietly, taking care to pay attention to the two small dragons that were currently using him as a pillow.

Dean shrugged, grinning slightly, "It looks like it. Don't say anything too loudly about it though, they might realize they've let us off the hook and make us deal with it."

Gabriel hummed in response, wincing when he heard a loud bang come from the kitchen. "You think they'll manage to keep the kitchen intact with two of the dragons helping them?"

Dean shrugged, "We can only hope so. I am absolutely refusing to clean the kitchen if it's a complete disaster area."

Sam and Castiel, meanwhile, were trying to get Nyla and Bran to stay off the counters. Sam finally threw his hands up, "If you two can't behave and stay on the floor or chairs where we told the two of you that you were allowed, I will banish you back into the living room with Dean and Gabriel!" The two small dragons tilted their heads, examining Sam as though trying to discern whether or not he was likely to truly do such a thing. They finally scrambled up into the couple of chairs that had been pulled out from the table and settled down a moment later.

Castiel smiled lightly at the dragons, "Good. Alright Sam, so we'll cook the fish and some of the chicken for them, and then just put the frozen lasagna in the oven for us to eat tonight. We can just make sandwiches for lunch, like we've been doing this last week, if that's alright."

Sam nodded, and the two of them set out to work on lunch and getting the little dragons fed. It didn't take them long, and lunch turned out to be a rather interesting affair. Gabriel stopped the movie for the dragons, telling them that they could finish watching it later, and he and Dean had herded the remaining dragons into the kitchen where lunch was waiting. The dragons were much more delicate eaters than any of them had thought they would be. When lunch was finished, the dragons insisted on going back to their movie, apparently in good spirits and chattering away while the movie was put back on for them.

"Ugh, is it time to take a nap yet?" Sam grumbled as he sat down next to Gabriel on the sectional. His boyfriend nodded solemnly and pulling Sam so that he was resting his head on Gabriel's shoulder.

Dean snickered, "Sure princess, take a nap. Cas and I had one earlier...and you two did have to go into town today and deal with Becky."

Gabriel made a face at him, "Yeah. Oh! I almost forgot; guess who came into the rock shop while we were in there?"

Dean frowned at him while Castiel just looked at him curiously. Dean shrugged, "I don't know...the pope?"

Sam rolled his eyes, "No, stupid. Why would the pope be visiting Jasper Ville of all places? Are you cracked? It was Bela Talbot. She came in to ask Becky about dragon sightings again, apparently. She gave us a sort of odd look when we left. I can see what you mean about her being relatively creepy though. She isn't exactly a comforting person, is she? Anyways, even Becky clammed up around her. I wasn't sure that was even possible. Do you think Bela found something in the clearing?"

"She might have. Or perhaps she went to the rock shop to try and get more information because she didn't find what she was looking for in the clearing after all. Either way, it doesn't seem promising. It does not seem as though she is likely to give up any time soon, and that could be worrisome. We cannot keep the little dragons here indefinitely," Castiel said, watching the dragons watch the movie raptly. It was another animated movie, this one seeming to be about a fairy tale, as far as Castiel could discern. It worried him that Bela had been in the clearing at all, or close to it at least. They really wouldn't be able to keep the dragons there forever.

Dean groaned, going to open a window suddenly, Rey trailing after him and fluttering out of the window as soon as it was open. Gabriel raised his eyebrow at him in question. Dean shrugged, "They have to go to the bathroom just like us. If we leave a window open for them, then we won't have to let them in and out of the door constantly. Why don't the windows have screens, anyways?"

"I don't know. It's not like I designed the house or anything. The windows probably haven't been used much, if at all," Gabriel told him truthfully. He highly doubted that his mother had ever really had the windows open when she was there, and there was no telling if anyone else had or not.

Sam waved his hand at the two of them half-heartedly, turning to Castiel, "So what are we supposed to do? Go and check out the clearing first thing in the morning, to see if anything has changed there? With any luck McKay won't be gone too long..."

Castiel sat down on the sectional, humming thoughtfully for a moment, "We could do that...presumably, if Bela was already back in town by the time the two of you were there, she might not have found the clearing at all."

"Or it could be a trap," Dean mumbled. He wouldn't put foul play past someone who was trying to hunt down innocent dragons to skin them.

Gabriel nodded, "It might be a trap, but Cas is right, we can't keep them here too long. Maybe only two of us should go up to the clearing tomorrow."

Sam shook his head, "I don't think splitting up would be a good idea here. If she is there, we have a better chance of dealing with her if we have her severely out numbered. There's a good chance she's giving up on that particular area, if she's still asking around about dragon sightings on this part of the mountain."

"See, now is a time when having some sort of weapons around would have been a good idea," Dean grumbled at them unhappily. There was at least a ninety percent chance that Bela would have weapons of some sort.

Gabriel snorted, rolling his eyes at Dean, "Yeah? And how do you think that would go over? Besides, I'd like to make it my whole vacation without hiding a body, to be honest. I don't think weapons would matter against her. If she deals in supernatural items, than any sort of weapon she's likely to have could have other abilities. She could even be working with a dark witch or something, and have curses or hexes to throw at people that get in her way."

"Gabriel, I love you, but I think you've been watching too many horror movies," Sam told him affectionately. "I think we should all just go. We'll have to find out one way or another. What about the dragons, though? Do we leave them here, or take them with us?"

Castiel hesitated, "I don't think they would take kindly to all of us leaving at the same time. They were rather upset at first about you and Gabriel leaving this morning...I imagine all of us leaving at once might cause a full scale rebellion amongst them. It could be a huge mess for us to clean up, if they didn't accidently burn the place to the ground. We might as well save ourselves the hassle and take them. They might be able to warn us of any impending dangers before we got close enough for them to be a problem."

Dean frowned unhappily, "Okay, but what if Bela is in the clearing, or we meet her on the way? Then she'll not only know that there are dragons on the mountain, but she'll know that we knew too. I don't see that ending well."

"To be honest," Gabriel told them, "I don't see this ending well no matter which way you look at it. Bela Talbot is here looking for dragons, and we know that there are dragons all over this mountain range. The chances of her just giving up after so many reported sightings is pretty much zero. If it isn't our dragons she sees, it could be one of the other clans."

"Maybe we'll get lucky," Sam said, "and one of the other Mor Dragans will find her and eat her. The way McKay talked, it wouldn't be unlikely. Apparently dragons as a whole can hold one hell of a grudge, and they don't seem to be above making it a family grudge."

They finally agreed that they would go to the dragons' clearing the next day, with the dragons in tow so that they didn't destroy the cabin while the four of them were gone. The rest of the night ended up following their usual routine, with the addition of a dragon occasionally fluttering in and out of the open window. The later it got, the more the dragons seemed to settle down and want to cuddle with their humans, quickly turning the sectional into a relatively crowded piece of furniture.

"Why do I get the feeling that we're going to be sharing our beds with dragons?" Dean asked uncertainly, trying to untangle Evania's tail from around his wrist.

Sam sighed, "Because we probably will. I don't think it will matter if they start out here in the living room, they'll probably whine until we let them in with us. It's like having a bunch of highly intelligent cats that like television and attention. It would be seriously endearing if they didn't manage to take up more room than we do." As if to prove his point, Edan stretched out even more beside him, trying to push Gabriel farther over so he could have more of the couch.

Gabriel poked the little dragon gently, Edan barely even cracking an eye open to glance at him. "We might as well resign ourselves to sharing the bed with the dragons. Hopefully they won't try and kick us out of our own beds."

"This is why we don't have pets," Dean mumbled looking dubiously at the ten dragons and four humans that had somehow managed to fit on the sectional. It helped that each of them had at least one dragon in their lap, but it was still a tight fit for all of them with the way the dragons seemed to love to sprawl out.

Castiel smiled slightly, "It could be worse. How do you propose we manage to get them settled in? I'm getting fairly tired." Aidyn chattered at him, seemingly agreeing that it was time to go to bed. All of the dragons seemed rather tired, most of them already half asleep.

Dean raised an eyebrow at him, looking over the dragons thoughtfully, "I imagine it would be easiest to just get up and get ready for bed. They'll catch on that something's going on when we turn the TV off."

"Have you noticed," Gabriel commented, "that we're actually kind of dismal at making plans of any sort?"

Dean snorted, "This is news to you? Anyways, just try not to make any super sudden movements. If we can keep them half asleep they won't get some horrible second wind and keep us up all night. I am rather fond of my sleep, and not even remotely fond of having to get up in the middle of the night because someone got bored." Dean started carefully arranging the dragons around him so that he could get up, the others following suit.

It didn't take them nearly as long as they feared it might to get in bed, the dragons trailing along with them, apparently grasping an understanding of what was happening very quickly. Of course, the little dragons were quite happy to take up most of both beds, just like they had been quite happy to take up a rather large portion of the couch. Once they were all finally settled in, no one really stirred again until well after eight the next morning.

Sam's first thought was that Gabriel was lying on top of him, along with every blanket his boyfriend could find, he was that warm. He was pretty sure he was horribly overheated, which just added to the thought that Gabriel was trying to suffocate him. This thought was quickly proven false when he heard Gabriel groan; sounding as though he was at least two or three feet away from Sam. Sam finally cracked open an eye, trying to discern where the impossible heat was coming from, only to realize that sometime in the night the dragons had abandoned sleeping next to him and instead had decided to sleep on top of him. Gabriel didn't appear to be fairing much better, but he only had the two small dragons to contend with, rather than the three that were curled up on Sam.

Gabriel came to with the rather disgruntled comment of, "Turn of the damned volcano. What is this, the Sahara?"

Sam lasted all of about five seconds before he started laughing sleepily, "Sorry Gabe, I don't think the dragons got the memo about it not being a desert."

"Well they should have," Gabriel grumbled at them, blinking his eyes open, then immediately squinted his eyes half closed again against the small bit of sun light that was filtering into the room. "When's breakfast?"

Sam shrugged, the movement making Nyla chatter at him unhappily from where she was curled up the farthest on his chest. Keir was curled more across his stomach, while Edan had taken up residence on his legs. He'd forgotten last night how much heat the small creatures could actually generate, which would appear to be the reason he was so warm. "I suppose breakfast is whenever someone gets up to make it. Cas and Dean might already be up, but considering Cas's new penchant for sleeping in, I somehow doubt it."

Gabriel grunted, sitting up and dislodging Orin from his chest. Orin toppled down on top of Brie, who had been keeping a similar position across Gabriel's lap as Edan had taken on Sam's legs. "I guess that means we're probably in charge of breakfast. So what are you making?"

"I like how you did that. We're in charge of breakfast but you want to know what I'm making," Sam shook his head and sighed. "I think there's still some stuff for pancakes. There were leftovers last night for the dragons, so that will be easy…I can just put their stuff in the oven to heat it up. Pancakes and fruit for breakfast for us, I think. We're out of breakfast meats, as of yesterday, and no one reminded us to pick more up when we went into town."

Gabriel let out a put upon sigh, "I suppose that will do. I vote we launch a pillow at Dean and Cas before we go about making breakfast."

Sam rolled his eyes, gently moving Nyla and Keir as he sat up. "What is this 'we' crap? We both know the only help you'll give me in the kitchen is eating all of the food," Sam told him indignantly as he got out of bed.

Gabriel pouted, trudging after him with their five dragons sleepily trailing behind him, "I am perfectly capable of helping cut fruit or something! And I'm good at making toast! Although since we're having pancakes, we probably don't actually need toast."

Sam shook his head, "Not really, no. I thought you were going to go chuck a pillow at Dean and Cas to wake them up?"

"Oh, right. If you hear me screaming, you might want to come save me," Gabriel told him, moving back to their room to grab a pillow to throw at their brothers.

Sam shook his head and continued onto the kitchen, the dragons having decided it was safer to follow him and trailing behind him. It only took a couple of minutes before he heard a yell that was distinctly Dean coming from down the hall, followed by a thump that might have been one of them falling off the bed. Gabriel came sprinting into the kitchen with a pleased smile stretching across his face. Sam shook his head again, "I don't want to know. I don't want involved, and no, I will not protect you from Dean's wrath. I grew up with him, and I've dealt with it enough, thanks."

Gabriel pouted at him, sitting down at the table, "Fine. Cas won't let him kill me at least. Besides, the handful of times I've had to resort to waking Dean up rudely, that was how I did it. He ought to be used to it by now."

"Yeah, well, what Dean ought to be used to and what Dean is actually used to are two very different things," Sam informed him, going about getting breakfast ready for both the dragons and the four humans that needed fed. He could only hope that what they were feeding the dragons they were currently housing was close enough to their normal diet that they wouldn't get sick. He also sincerely hoped that McKay would already be back at the clearing by the time they got there.

Dean and Castiel came into the kitchen then, their own five dragons following them in a sleepy daze and joining the other dragons in watching Sam with curious eyes. Dean eyed Sam curiously himself, "What's for breakfast?"

"Pancakes and fruit for us," Sam told him, continuing to go about preparing their meal.

Dean nodded, sitting at the table next to Castiel. "So, the plan is to eat, get dressed, and then head out to the clearing, right?"

Castiel nodded beside him, "Yes, that would seem to be the plan. With any luck, Bela won't have even actually found the clearing, and McKay will be back. We can hope for that, at least."

The rest of the time Sam spent making breakfast, and breakfast itself, was rather quiet and tense. The dragons quickly picked up on the tension in the room, only chattering to each other every few minutes. By the time the fourteen of them left the cabin, the tension and worry had become nearly unbearable, thick enough in the air that it was a bit like breathing in water. It wasn't much better once they were outside, the morning was nearly ominously quiet, and the dragons were unsettled. It quickly became apparent that the small dragons were quite nervous by the way there were almost continually under foot, nearly getting trampled on more than one occasion by the time they had reached the lake.

"Alright," Dean said, peering down at the clan of dragons as they turned onto the path that led to the clearing, "I don't suppose any of you can tell if there's anything threatening so far?" The dragons only response was to stare back at Dean somberly, apparently waiting for him to make the first move. "I'll take that as a no. Okay then, going in blind it is. Anyone have any last words in case we don't make it out of this alive?"

Sam rolled his eyes at his brother, "Quite being so damned dramatic. The chances of something happening aren't that high. It's more likely that nothing in the clearing will have been disturbed and everything will be fine."

"You say that now, but if you're wrong, I get to tell you 'I told you so' later if I'm still alive to do so," Dean informed Sam grumpily, clearly becoming more on edge the closer they got to the clearing. The dragons didn't seem to be doing any better as they fluttered about the four of them restlessly.

Castiel frowned at Dean, "It wouldn't kill you to be a bit more positive about this, would it? Projecting a negative outlook on this will not help us even in the direst situations, so it doesn't actually do any good. Besides, so far nothing seems to be even remotely out of place."

Dean grumbled nonsense, and they continued on quietly approaching the clearing. The four of them practically held their breaths as the entered the clearing, looking around skeptically as the dragons stayed close to them. Dean stopped walking a couple of feet into the clearing, looking around skeptically, "Well, I don't see anything right away that seems off."

Sam had to agree, as he couldn't see anything immediately that set off alarms for him. It didn't seem as though anyone had been in the clearing, much less been near the dragons dens. Of course, there were no signs of McKay either, which didn't sit well with him, but it was better than having the dens destroyed or messed with. "I don't see anything either. Maybe she didn't really get that close to here after all."

Castiel frowned uncertainly, "I don't know. It seemed as if she was rather close, but it's hard to tell when they show you things like that. It was also like the impression was slightly warped…though it only seemed to be the image of her, not the things around her, that was warped."

"That doesn't sound particularly comforting. I guess that might give more credence to their theory that she isn't really human," Sam grumbled as he moved more towards the center of the clearing.

"Well," a voice said, coming from the side of the clearing, "That isn't a very nice thing to say at all." Bela stepped out of the woods and into the clearing, making all four of them cringe and the dragons squawk indignantly. "Somehow I honestly doubt these are the dragons that people have been spotting. They're awfully…well, small. They won't be good for the usual things, but I suppose they can be used for something."

Dean narrowed his eyes at her, "How about no? Why don't you take your crazy ideas and go look for poor innocent creatures to make you a bunch of money somewhere else?"

Bela stalked about half way into the clearing, giving Dean a measuring look before glancing at the rest of them, "I could be persuaded to leave these little dragons in peace, if, of course, you would care to direct me to the larger dragons residing on this mountain. And don't bother trying to tell me there aren't any. There have been entirely too many sightings that say exactly the contrary."

Gabriel glowered at her, "Even if we did know where to find the other dragons, why the hell would we tell you?"

"Why, because they're evil creatures that terrorize towns people, of course! Don't you know any of the legends surrounding dragons? They're menacing monsters that take virgin sacrifices and light whole towns ablaze," Bela told them monotonously. She seemed rather bored of the whole thing, standing there looking as though she would prefer to be anywhere else. "Look, I have plenty of other things I need to be doing, so why don't you just part with whatever information you have, and leave the little dragons to me? It would be much easier than whatever it is the four of you think you can do to stand against me."

"Your information about dragons is sadly outdated, I am afraid," Castiel told her solemnly, "And we won't be telling you anything, or leaving the dragons with you."

"Look you little idiots; I don't have time for your childish nonsense!" Bela all but growled at them, moving to take a step forward before they heard the whoosh of air that indicated rather large wings beating. Bela looked to the sky, a cruel smile twisting onto her face, "Ah, it looks like I don't need you to lead me to them after all!"

The four of them looked up, thinking they would see the golden color that indicated McKay, but instead there was a green dragon that was oddly serpentine. It's body was longer, tapering down to a tail and it was a deep green color. It looked similar to the Chinese dragons that you often saw at parades; a cross between that and the body type McKay had with large wings sprouting from the middle of its back.

Dean elbowed Castiel gently and murmured, "Do we know what sort of dragon that is, and if it's likely to eat us?"

"It's a Mor Nathair Dragan," Castiel murmured to him, "And considering how the small ones are grouped around us, I highly doubt it will immediately try and eat us. Bela, on the other hand, is probably in horrid danger of being eaten."

"Good," Dean muttered, watching the approaching dragon nervously. "Wait, what's a Mor Nathair Dragan?"

Sam rolled his eyes, "It means Large Snake Dragon, Dean." Dean nodded in response, watching as Bela grinned evilly at the dragon as it began to land. It looked as if she had something in her hand. Before any of them could even think to get a warning out to the dragon, Bran had darted forward and wound between the woman's legs, tripping her up and keeping her from launching the thing at the dragon. Instead it rolled to the ground, letting out a rather disorienting plume of smoke that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. "Alright, I guess you were right about her having hexes or curses or whatever," Sam muttered to Gabriel.

Gabriel wrinkled his nose, and then shrugged, "Not exactly something I wanted to be right about, Sammy. She doesn't look too happy, does she?" Bela now looked as though she was truly out for blood, and Bran managed to dart away again before she could get her hands on him.

"You little bastard," Bela growled, "I'll get you!" While Bela continued to make threats without actually moving far from her spot, the large Mor Nathair Dragan landed in the clearing, its eyes narrowed to slits as it regarded Bela. She snarled at the dragon, but didn't move.

The dragon turned its attention to them, and all four of them went almost impossibly still as it watched them curiously. "You are part of this dragon clan?" it asked them, a curious tone to its voice.

Castiel nodded, "Yes, we are. Or, well, we think we are. They share with us." Castiel hoped that the last bit was what the dragon was looking for, because he honestly didn't have an absolute answer to give the dragon, because he honestly didn't know for certain.

The dragon nodded its large head, "McKay mentioned you when I saw him yesterday." The dragon's voice was softer than McKay's was, and they quickly realized it was because this dragon was female. "McKay also told me that there was a woman hunting dragons here. A Talbot, to be exact. Is this the woman he spoke of?"

"Uh, yeah, it is," Dean said, watching the dragon more curiously now that he knew it wasn't as likely to kill them.

The dragon nodded at them again, "I am Ciannait, and I would suggest that you leave the clearing so that I may dispose of this waste of space before she can try and harm any more of my kind."

The four of them were quick to comply, moving just far enough down the path that they couldn't actually see what was happening in the clearing. Their small clan of dragons didn't follow them, though. Being out of sight of the clearing didn't stop them from being able to hear Bela scream, or the roar that the dragon let out. Nor did it stop a couple of the small dragons from sending them vague images of what was happening just out of their sight.

"Ugh," Dean groaned, "I could have done without the imagery. I take it back, I don't think Becky deserves that kind of end after all. Being eaten by a dragon doesn't seem like a good way to die."

Gabriel grimaced in agreement, "Do you think you're still alive for a bit while they digest you? Or do they kill you before they digest you?"

Sam and Castiel shook their heads, identical looks of disgust on their faces. Sam glared at their brothers, "Do you really have to discuss that sort of thing? We just had breakfast, and honestly, it's pretty morbid."

Dean shrugged, "We're just curious. Anyway, do you think it's safe to check the clearing again? It sounded like wing beats a second ago…"

Sam shrugged, "I guess. They aren't sending any more gruesome images, so we should be safe. Anyway, how would she still have been alive if Ciannait literally bit her in half?"

Gabriel looked at him with rapt attention, "Did she really? I didn't see that part."

Sam rolled his eyes as Castiel sighed, "I worry about the two of you. Perhaps we should limit how many gory films the two of you watch."

They walked back into the clearing, half surprised to see Ciannait still there and even more surprised to see McKay there as well. McKay turned his gaze to them before speaking, "I am sorry that you had to be witness to such things. I thank you deeply for ensuring that the wee ones were kept safe while I was away. They seem to believe quite strongly that the woman would have managed to harm them if you had not allowed them into your dwelling. The dragons of these mountains, all of them, owe you a great debt it seems." McKay didn't seem upset that the dragons owed them some sort of debt; rather, he seemed impressed and grateful.

Dean shrugged, "It's not like we did much. We didn't really know what to feed them, or anything… We couldn't exactly have left them outside for that bitch to find, either."

Castiel nodded in agreement, "We would never have done such a thing to them."

"Never the less, you are owed a great debt for what you have done for us, and it shall not be forgotten," McKay told them, bowing his head slightly in respect. The small dragons took this as a sign that it was okay for them to begin fluttering around the four humans as was usual for them.

A couple of hours later the four of them made their way back to the cabin without the small dragons following them. They had spent the time conversing with the two large dragons and playing with their clan of small dragons, occasionally looking over their shoulders to the place that Bela had last stood.

"Can you believe," Gabriel started as he sat down on the couch upon arrival back at the cabin, "That a couple of weeks ago we were normal college students that had never seen anything particularly remarkable?"

Dean snorted, "I guess that depends on what you consider remarkable, but I know what you mean. It just doesn't seem likely that this is suddenly our lives. We went from dorm rooms to a dragon clan. How's that for trippy?"

Sam shrugged, "It does seem pretty unlikely. Part of me wonders if I'm going to wake up at some point and realize this was all just one really weird long dream. What happens now, anyways?"

Castiel smiled, humming contentedly as he joined the other four on the couch, "Well, it's not as though we can go back to a time, a life, where we don't know a bunch of dragons and we aren't part of a dragon clan. I suppose we shall have to take such things into account from now on. It seems as though everything has changed, and yet nothing at all."

That was exactly what all of them had been feeling. It seemed as though even though their world had been turned upside down in a way, everything would keep going on as if it hadn't, just as life was inclined to do. It was neither an ending nor a beginning, it was simply them, and the dragons, and the mountain. Or it would be at least until the end of the summer. After that, who knew what could happen, or where life would take them?


End file.
